Freiburg 2024 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 1: Ultra-cold Atoms, Ions and BEC I (joint session A/Q)
A 1.5: Talk
Monday, March 11, 2024, 12:15–12:30, HS 1010
Collisional dynamics between an ion and a Rydberg S-state — •Moritz Berngruber1, Daniel Bosworth2, Óscar Andrey Herrera Sancho1, Viraatt Anasuri1, Jennifer Krauter1, Nicolas Zuber1, Frederic Hummel2, Florian Meinert1, Robert Löw1, Peter Schmelcher2, and Tilman Pfau1 — 15. Physikalisches Institut and Center for Integrated Quantum Science and Technology, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany — 2The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging, Universität Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany
We report on the onset dynamics of a collision between an ion and a Rydberg atom in a highly excited S-state. Due to a large number of avoided crossings in the pair state potential, the dynamics can be quite complex but also provides a lot of possibility to manipulate and control the collision rates by changing the adiabaticity of the system. In our setup we can create Rb+ ions and highly excited Rydberg sates independently. Owed to a very precise control of electric stray fields, we can conduct our measurements without the need of an additional ion trap, preventing micromotion in our experiments. By using a high-resolution ion microscope, we can directly observe the ions and Rydberg atoms in a cold thermal cloud in real space with a resolution of 200 nm. This allows us not only to directly map out the C4 pair interaction potential but also to directly observe the onset of the collisional dynamics. Finally, the experimental results are compared to a multi-channel model based on a Landau-Zener approach, which agrees very well with the experimental results.
Keywords: ultra cold atoms; Rydberg atoms; ions; collisions; Landau-Zener