Rostock 2019 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 11: Ultra-cold plasmas and Rydberg systems

A 11.12: Poster

Dienstag, 12. März 2019, 16:30–18:30, S Fobau Physik

A Rydberg atom coupled to a 2D lattice of ultracold ground state atoms — •Andrew Hunter, Matthew Eiles, Alexander Eisfeld, and Jan-Michael Rost — Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems

We investigate the spectrum of a Rydberg atom embedded in a two-dimensional lattice of ground state atoms. The strength of the interaction between the Rydberg electron and the neutral atoms is determined by the s-wave electron-atom scattering length. In the high lattice density regime, where many hundreds of atoms lie within the Rydberg wave function, we find that a class of perturbed states breaks away energetically from the others. These are circular states, highly localised in angular momentum. This is in stark contrast to the more familiar scenario of the “trilobite" molecule, where just one perturbing atom couples together many angular momenta and a single state, highly localised in space, splits away from the degenerate Rydberg manifold. We derive new scaling laws which stem from the planar structure of the perturbers, and with these we obtain a universal form of the energy spectrum in the high density limit. We also investigate the perturbed spectrum’s dependence on the lattice properties.