Mainz 2017 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 32: Rydberg gasses I
A 32.7: Talk
Friday, March 10, 2017, 12:30–12:45, HS 20
Bistability vs. Metastability in Driven Dissipative Rydberg Gases — •Oliver Thomas1,2, Fabian Letscher1,2, Thomas Niederprüm1, Michael Fleischhauer1, and Herwig Ott1 — 1Department of Physics and research center OPTIMAS, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany — 2Graduate School Materials Science in Mainz, Gottlieb-Daimler-Strasse 47, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
We investigate the possibility of a bistable phase in an open many-body system. To this end we discuss the microscopic dynamics of a continuously off-resonantly driven Rydberg lattice gas in the regime of strong decoherence. Our experimental results reveal a prolongation of the temporal correlations exceeding the lifetime of a single Rydberg excitation and show strong evidence for the formation of finite-sized Rydberg excitation clusters in the steady state. We simulate the dynamics of the system using a simplified and a full many-body rate-equation model. The results are compatible with the formation of metastable states associated with a bimodal counting distribution as well as dynamic hysteresis. Yet, a scaling analysis reveals, that the correlation times remain finite for all relevant system parameters, which suggests a formation of many small Rydberg clusters and finite correlation lengths of Rydberg excitations. These results constitute strong evidence against the presence of a global bistable phase previously suggested to exist in this system.