No Arabic abstract
Dipole-dipole interactions are at the origin of long-lived collective atomic states, often called subradiant, which are explored for their potential use in novel photonic devices or in quantum protocols. Here, we study subradiance beyond linear optics and experimentally demonstrate a two hundred-fold increase in the population of these modes, as the saturation parameter of the driving field is increased. We attribute this enhancement to a mechanism similar to optical pumping through the well-coupled superradiant states. The lifetimes are unaffected by the pump strength, as the system is ultimately driven toward the single-excitation sector.
We introduce a new optical tool - a two-dimensional optical centrifuge, capable of aligning molecules in extreme rotational states. Unlike the conventional centrifuge, which confines the molecules in the plane of their rotation, its two-dimensional version aligns the molecules along a well-defined axis, similarly to the effect of a single linearly polarized laser pulse, but at a much higher level of rotational excitation. The increased robustness of ultra-high rotational states with respect to collisions results in a longer life time of the created alignment in dense media, offering new possibilities for studying and utilizing aligned molecular ensembles under ambient conditions.
We experimentally and numerically study the temporal dynamics of light scattered by large clouds of cold atoms after the exciting laser is switched off in the low intensity (linear optics) regime. Radiation trapping due to multiple scattering as well as subradiance lead to decay much slower than the single atom fluorescence decay. These two effects have already been observed separately, but the interplay between them remained to be understood. Here, we show that with well chosen parameters of the driving field, the two effects can occur at the same time, but follow different scaling behaviors. The subradiant decay is observed at late time and its rate is independent of the detuning, while the radiation trapping decay is observed at intermediate time and depends on the detuning through the optical depth of the sample. Numerical simulations based on random walk process and coupled-dipole equations support our interpretations. Our study clarifies the different interpretations and physical mechanisms at the origin of slow temporal dynamics of light in cold atoms.
Confining particles in hollow-core photonic crystal fibers has opened up new prospects to scale up the distance and time over which particles can be made to interact with light. However, maintaining long-lived quantum spin coherence and/or transporting it over macroscopic distances in a waveguide remain challenging. Here, we demonstrate coherent guiding of ground-state superpositions of 85Rb atoms over a centimeter range and hundreds of milliseconds inside a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber. The decoherence is mainly due to dephasing from residual differential light shift (DLS) from the optical trap and the inhomogeneity of ambient magnetic field. Our experiment establishes an important step towards a versatile platform that can lead to applications in quantum information networks and matter wave circuit for quantum sensing.
We show that the resonant dipole-dipole interaction can give rise to bound states between two and three Rydberg atoms with non-overlapping electron clouds. The dimer and trimer states arise from avoided level crossings between states converging to different fine structure manifolds in the limit of separated atoms. We analyze the angular dependence of the potential wells, characterize the quantum dynamics in these potentials and discuss methods for their production and detection. Typical distances between the atoms are of the order of several micrometers which can be resolved in state-of-the-art experiments. The potential depths and typical oscillation frequencies are about one order of magnitude larger as compared to the dimer and trimer states investigated in [PRA $textbf{86}$ 031401(R) (2012)] and [PRL $textbf{111}$ 233003 (2014)], respectively. We find that the dimer and trimer molecules can be aligned with respect to the axis of a weak electric field.
We show that the dipole-dipole interaction between three identical Rydberg atoms can give rise to bound trimer states. The microscopic origin of these states is fundamentally different from Efimov physics. Two stable trimer configurations exist where the atoms form the vertices of an equilateral triangle in a plane perpendicular to a static electric field. The triangle edge length typically exceeds $Rapprox 2,mutext{m}$, and each configuration is two-fold degenerate due to Kramers degeneracy. The depth of the potential wells and the triangle edge length can be controlled by external parameters. We establish the Borromean nature of the trimer states, analyze the quantum dynamics in the potential wells and describe methods for their production and detection.