No Arabic abstract
We present photo-excitation of ultra-long-range Rydberg molecules as a probe of spatial correlations in quantum gases. Rydberg molecules can be created with well-defined internuclear spacing, set by the radius of the outer lobe of the Rydberg electron wavefunction $R_n$. By varying the principal quantum number $n$ of the target Rydberg state, the molecular excitation rate can be used to map the pair-correlation function of the trapped gas $g^{(2)}(R_n)$. We demonstrate this with ultracold Sr gases and probe pair-separation length scales ranging from $R_n = 1400 - 3200$ $a_0$, which are on the order of the thermal de Broglie wavelength for temperatures around 1 $mu$K. We observe bunching for a single-component Bose gas of $^{84}$Sr and anti-bunching due to Pauli exclusion at short distances for a polarized Fermi gas of $^{87}$Sr, revealing the effects of quantum statistics.
The lifetimes of the lower-lying vibrational states of ultralong-range strontium Rydberg molecules comprising one ground-state 5s2 1S0 atom and one Rydberg atom in the 5s38s 3S1 state are reported. The molecules are created in an ultracold gas held in an optical dipole trap and their numbers determined using field ionization, the product electrons being detected by a microchannel plate. The measurements show that, in marked contrast to earlier measurements involving rubidium Rydberg molecules, the lifetimes of the low-lying molecular vibrational states are very similar to those of the parent Rydberg atoms. This results because the strong p-wave resonance in low-energy electronrubidium scattering, which plays an important role in determining the molecular lifetimes, is not present for strontium. The absence of this resonance offers advantages for experiments involving strontium Rydberg atoms as impurities in quantum gases and for testing theories of molecular formation and decay.
The lifetimes and decay channels of ultralong-range Rydberg molecules created in a dense BEC are examined by monitoring the time evolution of the Rydberg population using field ionization. Studies of molecules with values of principal quantum number, $n$, in the range $n=49$ to $n=72$ that contain tens to hundreds of ground state atoms within the Rydberg electron orbit show that their presence leads to marked changes in the field ionization characteristics. The Rydberg molecules have lifetimes of $sim1-5,mu$s, their destruction being attributed to two main processes: formation of Sr$^+_2$ ions through associative ionization, and dissociation induced through $L$-changing collisions. The observed loss rates are consistent with a reaction model that emphasizes the interaction between the Rydberg core ion and its nearest neighbor ground-state atom. The measured lifetimes place strict limits on the time scales over which studies involving Rydberg species in cold, dense atomic gases can be undertaken and limit the coherence times for such measurements.
We report the creation of heteronuclear ultralong-range Rydberg-molecule dimers by excitation of minority $^{88}text{Sr}$ atoms to $5sns,^3S_1$ Rydberg states ($n=31-39$) in a dense background of $^{84}text{Sr}$. We observe an isotope shift of the $ u=0$ vibrational state over this range of $n$ and compare our measurements with a theoretical prediction and a simple scaling argument. With the appropriate choice of principal quantum number the isotope shift is sufficiently large to produce heteronuclear dimers with almost perfect fidelity. When the spectral selectivity is limited, we obtain a lower bound on the ratio of heteronuclear to homonuclear excitation probability of 30 to 1 by measuring the scaling of the molecular excitation rate with varying relative densities of $^{88}text{Sr}$ and $^{84}text{Sr}$ in the ultracold mixture.
Finite-range interacting spin models are the simplest models to study the effect of beyond nearest-neighbour interactions and access new effects caused by the range of the interactions. Recent experiments have reached the regime of dominant interactions in Ising quantum magnets via optical coupling of trapped neutral atoms to Rydberg states. This approach allows for the tunability of all relevant terms in an Ising Hamiltonian with $1/r^6$ interactions in a transverse and longitudinal field. This review summarizes the recent progress of these implementations in Rydberg lattices with site-resolved detection. The strong correlations in this quantum Ising model have been observed in several experiments up to the point of crystallization. In systems with a diameter small compared to the Rydberg blockade radius, the number of excitations is maximally one in the so-called superatom regime.
The non-equilibrium response of a quantum many-body system defines its fundamental transport properties and how initially localized quantum information spreads. However, for long-range-interacting quantum systems little is known. We address this issue by analyzing a local quantum quench in the long-range Ising model in a transverse field, where interactions decay as a variable power-law with distance $propto r^{-alpha}$, $alpha>0$. Using complementary numerical and analytical techniques, we identify three dynamical regimes: short-range-like with an emerging light cone for $alpha>2$; weakly long-range for $1<alpha<2$ without a clear light cone but with a finite propagation speed of almost all excitations; and fully non-local for $alpha<1$ with instantaneous transmission of correlations. This last regime breaks generalized Lieb--Robinson bounds and thus locality. Numerical calculation of the entanglement spectrum demonstrates that the usual picture of propagating quasi-particles remains valid, allowing an intuitive interpretation of our findings via divergences of quasi-particle velocities. Our results may be tested in state-of-the-art trapped-ion experiments.