We propose to track position and velocity of mobile Rydberg excited impurity atoms through the elastic interactions of the Rydberg electron with a host condensate. Tracks first occur in the condensate phase, but are then naturally converted to features in the condensate density or momentum distribution. The condensate thus acts analogous to the cloud or bubble chambers in the early days of elementary particle physics. The technique will be useful for exploring Rydberg-Rydberg scattering, rare inelastic processes involving the Rydberg impurities, coherence in Rydberg motion and forces exerted by the condensate on the impurities. Our simulations show that resolvable tracks can be generated within the immersed Rydberg lifetime and condensate heating is under control. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of this Rydberg tracking technique to study ionizing Rydberg collisions or angular momentum changing interactions with the condensate.
We show how the phase profile of Bose-Einstein condensates can be engineered through its in- teraction with localized Rydberg excitations. The interaction is made controllable and long-range by off-resonantly coupling the condensate to another Rydberg state with laser light. Our technique allows the mapping of entanglement generated in systems of few strongly interacting Rydberg atoms onto much larger atom clouds in hybrid setups. As an example we discuss the creation of a spatial mesoscopic superposition state from a bright soliton. Additionally, the phase imprinted onto the condensate using …
We numerically analyze the impact of a single Rydberg electron onto a Bose-Einstein condensate. Both $S-$ and $D-$ Rydberg states are studied. The radial size of $S-$ and $D-$states are comparable, hence the only difference is due to the angular dependence of the wavefunctions. We find the atom losses in the condensate after the excitation of a sequence of Rydberg atoms. Additionally, we investigate the mechanical effect in which the Rydberg atoms force the condensate to oscillate. Our numerical analysis is based on the classical fields approximation. Finally, we compare numerical results to e…
We study the influence of Rydberg dressed interactions in a one-dimensional (1D) Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). We show that a 1D geometry offers several advantages over 3D for observing BEC Rydberg dressing. The effects of dressing are studied by investigating collective BEC dynamics after a rapid switch-off of the Rydberg dressing interaction. The results can be interpreted as an effective modification of the s-wave scattering length. We include this modification in an analytical model for the 1D BEC, and compare it to numerical calculations of Rydberg dressing under realistic experimental …
We report on the realization of high resolution electron microscopy of Rydberg-excited ultracold atomic samples. The implementation of an ultraviolet laser system allows us to excite the atom, with a single-photon transition, to Rydberg states. By using the electron microscopy technique during the Rydberg excitation of the atoms, we observe a giant enhancement in the production of ions. This is due to $l$-changing collisions, which broaden the Rydberg level and therefore increase the excitation rate of Rydberg atoms. Our results pave the way for the high resolution spatial detection of Rydberg…
We study rotating quasi-two-dimensional Bose-Einstein-condensates, in which atoms are dressed to a highly excited Rydberg state. This leads to weak effective interactions that induce a transition to a mesoscopic supersolid state. Considering slow rotation, we determine its superfluidity using Quantum Monte-Carlo simulations as well as mean field calculations. For rapid rotation, the latter reveal an interesting competition between the supersolid crystal structure and the rotation-induced vortex lattice that gives rise to new phases, including arrays of mesoscopic vortex crystals.
We study the behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in which atoms are weakly coupled to a highly excited Rydberg state. Since the latter have very strong van der Waals interactions, this coupling induces effective, nonlocal interactions between the dressed ground state atoms, which, opposed to dipolar interactions, are isotropically repulsive. Yet, one finds partial attraction in momentum space, giving rise to a roton-maxon excitation spectrum and a transition to a supersolid state in three-dimensional condensates. A detailed analysis of decoherence and loss mechanisms suggests that these phe…
We report spectroscopic observation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic Bose gas. Polarons are created by excitation of Rydberg atoms as impurities in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate. They are distinguished from previously studied polarons by macroscopic occupation of bound molecular states that arise from scattering of the weakly bound Rydberg electron from ground-state atoms. The absence of a $p$-wave resonance in the low-energy electron-atom scattering in Sr introduces a universal behavior in the Rydberg spectral lineshape and in scaling of the spectral width (narrowing) with the Rydberg …
We have performed two-photon excitation via the 6P3/2 state to n=50-80 S or D Rydberg state in Bose-Einstein condensates of rubidium atoms. The Rydberg excitation was performed in a quartz cell, where electric fields generated by plates external to the cell created electric charges on the cell walls. Avoiding accumulation of the charges and realizing good control over the applied electric field was obtained when the fields were applied only for a short time, typically a few microseconds. Rydberg excitations of the Bose-Einstein condensates loaded into quasi one-dimensional traps and in optical…
Rydberg atoms immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensate interact with the quantum gas via electron-atom and ion-atom interaction. To suppress the typically dominant electron-neutral interaction, Rydberg states with principal quantum number up to $n = 190$ are excited from a dense and tightly trapped micron-sized condensate. This allows us to explore a regime where the Rydberg orbit exceeds the size of the atomic sample by far. In this case, a detailed lineshape analysis of the Rydberg excitation spectrum provides clear evidence for ion-atom interaction at temperatures well below a microkelvin. Ou…
We present a quantum many-body description of the excitation spectrum of Rydberg polarons in a Bose gas. The many-body Hamiltonian is solved with functional determinant theory, and we extend this technique to describe Rydberg polarons of finite mass. Mean-field and classical descriptions of the spectrum are derived as approximations of the many-body theory. The various approaches are applied to experimental observations of polarons created by excitation of Rydberg atoms in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate.
We propose a technique for engineering momentum-dependent dissipation in Bose-Einstein condensates with non-local interactions. The scheme relies on the use of momentum-dependent dark-states in close analogy to velocity-selective coherent population trapping. During the short-time dissipative dynamics, the system is driven into a particular finite-momentum phonon mode, which in real space corresponds to an ordered structure with non-local density-density correlations. Dissipation-induced ordering can be observed and studied in present-day experiments using cold atoms with dipole-dipole or off-…
We present spectroscopy of a single Rydberg atom excited within a Bose-Einstein condensate. We not only observe the density shift as discovered by Amaldi and Segre in 1934, but a line shape which changes with the principal quantum number n. The line broadening depends precisely on the interaction potential energy curves of the Rydberg electron with the neutral atom perturbers. In particular, we show the relevance of the triplet p-wave shape resonance in the Rydberg electron-Rb(5S) scattering, which significantly modifies the interaction potential. With a peak density of 5.5x10^14 cm^-3, and th…
Recent experiments with Bose-Einstein condensates have entered a regime in which thousands of ground-state condensate atoms fill the Rydberg-electron orbit. After the excitation of a single atom into a highly excited Rydberg state, scattering off the Rydberg electron sets ground-state atoms into motion, such that one can study the quantum-many-body dynamics of atoms moving within the Rydberg atom. Here we study this many-body dynamics using Gross-Pitaevskii and truncated Wigner theory. Our simulations focus in particular on the scenario of multiple sequential Rydberg excitations on the same Ru…
The quantum mechanical states of electrons in atoms and molecules are distinct orbitals, which are fundamental for our understanding of atoms, molecules and solids. Electronic orbitals determine a wide range of basic atomic properties, allowing also for the explanation of many chemical processes. Here, we propose a novel technique to optically image the shape of electron orbitals of neutral atoms using electron-phonon coupling in a Bose-Einstein condensate. To validate our model we carefully analyze the impact of a single Rydberg electron onto a condensate and compare the results to experiment…
Extended Hubbard models have proven to bear novel quantum states, but their experimental realization remains challenging. In this work we propose to use bosonic quantum gases dressed with molecular bound states in Rydberg interaction potentials for the observation of these quantum states. We study the molecular Rabi coupling with respect to principal quantum number and trapping frequency of the ground state atoms for various molecular potentials of Rubidium and Potassium, and the hereby resulting dressed interaction strength. Additionally, we propose a two-color excitation scheme which signifi…
Measurements of the loss rates for strontium n$^{3}$S$_{1}$ Rydberg atoms excited in a dense BEC are presented for values of principal quantum number $n$ in the range $49\lesssim n \lesssim 150$ and local atom densities of $\sim1$ to $3\times10^{14}$cm$^{-3}$. Two main processes contribute to loss, associative ionization and state-changing. The relative importance of these two loss channels is investigated and their $n$- and density-dependences are discussed using a model in which Rydberg atom loss is presumed to involve a close collision between the Rydberg core ion and ground-state atoms. Th…
We study the dynamics of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice in which the electronic groundstate of each atom is weakly coupled to a highly excited Rydberg state by a far off-resonant laser. This dressing induces a switchable effective soft-core interaction between groundstate atoms which, in the lattice, gives rise to on-site as well as long-range interaction terms. Upon switching on the dressing laser the Bose-Einstein condensate undergoes a nontrivial collapse and revival dynamics which can be observed in the interference pattern that is created after a release of the a…
Preparation of molecular quantum gas promises novel applications including quantum control of chemical reactions, precision measurements, quantum simulation and quantum information processing. Experimental preparation of colder and denser molecular samples, however, is frequently hindered by fast inelastic collisions that heat and deplete the population. Here we report the formation of two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of spinning $g-$wave molecules by inducing pairing interactions in an atomic condensate. The trap geometry and the low temperature of the molecules help reducing …
We describe the transition of $N$ weakly interacting atoms into a Bose-Einstein condensate within a number-conserving quantum master equation theory. Based on the separation of time scales for condensate formation and non-condensate thermalization, we derive a master equation for the condensate subsystem in the presence of the non-condensate environment under the inclusion of all two body interaction processes. We numerically monitor the condensate particle number distribution during condensate formation, and derive a condition under which the unique equilibrium steady state of a dilute, weakl…
We calculate the condensate fraction and the condensate and non-condensate spatial and momentum distribution of the Bose-Hubbard model in a trap. From our results, it is evident that using approximate distributions can lead to erroneous experimental estimates of the condensate. Strong interactions cause the condensate to develop pedestal-like structures around the central peak that can be mistaken as non-condensate atoms. Near the transition temperature, the peak itself can include a significant non-condensate component. Using distributions generated from QMC simulations, experiments can map t…
We emphasize that the macroscopic collapse of a dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate in a pancake-shaped trap occurs through local density fluctuations, rather than through a global collapse to the trap center. This hypothesis is supported by a recent experiment in a chromium condensate.
The internal vortex structure of a trapped spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate is investigated. It is shown that it has a variety of configurations depending on, in particular, the ratio of the relevant scattering lengths and the total magnetization.
We study some effects arising from periodic modulation of the asymmetry and the barrier height of a two-well potential containing a Bose-Einstein condensate. At certain modulation frequencies the system exhibits resonances, which may lead to enhancement of the tunneling rate between the wells and which can be used to control the particle distribution among the wells. Some of the effects predicted for a two-well system can be carried over to the case of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical lattice.
