Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 10: Bose-Einstein Condensation (joint session A/Q)

A 10.9: Talk

Monday, March 5, 2018, 16:00–16:15, K 2.016

Prospects for studying atom-ion interaction with giant Rydberg atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate — •Felix Engel, Kathrin Kleinbach, Thomas Dieterle, Carolin Dietrich, Robert Löw, Florian Meinert, and Tilman Pfau — 5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Germany

Giant Rydberg atoms immersed in ultracold quantum gases realize situations where thousands of ground-state atoms reside within the Rydberg electron orbit. In our experiments, we study the interaction of a single highly excited Rydberg electron (n ∼ 200) with a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The interaction of the Rydberg electron with the condensate atoms causes a density-dependent spectral line shift and broadening of the Rydberg excitation, which reflects the underlying scattering physics.

Using a tightly focused optical microtrap we access a parameter regime for which the Rydberg electron orbit largely exceeds the spatial extent of the BEC. This reduces the contribution of electron-neutral interaction with increasing n to the observed excitation spectrum. Consequently, the interaction of the condensate atoms with the Rydberg ionic core is expected to actively shape the spectral response, which provides an appealing route to study atom-ion interaction in a BEC.