We observe a universal ionization threshold for microwave driven one-electron Rydberg states of H, Li, Na, and Rb, in an {\em ab initio} numerical treatment without adjustable parameters. This sheds new light on old experimental data, and widens the scene for Anderson localization in light matter interaction.
A multi-dimensional semiclassical description of excitation of a Rydberg electron by half-cycle pulses is developed and applied to the study of energy- and angle-resolved ionization spectra. Characteristic novel phenomena observable in these spectra such as interference oscillations and semiclassical glory and rainbow scattering are discussed and related to the underlying classical dynamics of the Rydberg electron. Modifications to the predictions of the impulse approximation are examined that arise due to finite pulse durations.
Analytical arguments and numerical simulations suggest that the shapes of 3D microwave ionization curves measured by Koch and collaborators (see P. M. Koch and K. A. H. van Leeuwen, Phys. Rep. {\bf 255}, 289 (1995)) depend only weakly on the angular momentum of the atoms in the initial microcanonical ensemble, but strongly on the principal quantum number and the magnetic quantum number. Based on this insight, coupled with the computational power of a high-end 60-node Beowulf PC cluster, we present the first 3D quantum calculations of microwave ionization curves in the experimentally relevant p…
We study a novel regime of the Rydberg excitation blockade using highly Stark-shifted, yet long-living, states of Rb atoms subject to electric fields above the classical ionization limit. Such states allow tuning the dipole-dipole interaction strength while their ionization rate can be changed over two orders of magnitude by small variations of the electric field. We demonstrate laser excitation of the interacting Rydberg states followed by their detection using controlled ionization and magnified imaging with high spatial and temporal resolution. Our work reveals the hitherto unexplored possi…
We have studied the behavior of cold Rydberg atoms embedded in an ultracold plasma. We demonstrate that even deeply bound Rydberg atoms are completely ionized in such an environment, due to electron collisions. Using a fast pulse extraction of the electrons from the plasma we found that the number of excess positive charges, which is directly related to the electron temperature Te, is not strongly affected by the ionization of the Rydberg atoms. Assuming a Michie-King equilibrium distribution, in analogy with globular star cluster dynamics, we estimate Te. Without concluding on heating or cool…
A complete set of spectroscopic data is indispensable when using Rydberg states of trapped ions for quantum information processing. We carried out Rydberg series spectroscopy for $nS_{1/2}$ states with $38 \leq n \leq 65$ and for $nD_{5/2}$ states with $37\leq n \leq 50$ on a single trapped $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ion. From a nonlinear regression to resonance frequencies, we determined the ionization energy of 2 870 575.582(15) GHz, measured 60 times more accurately as compared to the accepted value and contradicting it by 7.5 standard deviations. We confirm quantum defect values of $δ_{S_{1/2}}=1.80299…
Results of theoretical calculations of ionization rates of Rb and Na Rydberg atoms by blackbody radiation (BBR) are presented. Calculations have been performed for nS, nP and nD states of Na and Rb, which are commonly used in a variety of experiments, at principal quantum numbers n=8-65 and at three ambient temperatures of 77, 300 and 600 K. A peculiarity of our calculations is that we take into account the contributions of BBR-induced redistribution of population between Rydberg states prior to photoionization and field ionization by extraction electric field pulses. The obtained results show…
The dipole blockade effect at laser excitation of mesoscopic ensembles of Rydberg atoms lies in the fact that the excitation of one atom to a Rydberg state blocks the excitation of other atoms due to the shift in the collective energy levels of interacting Rydberg atoms. It is used to obtain the entangled qubit states based on single neutral atoms in optical traps. In this paper, we present our experimental results on the observation of the dipole blockade for mesoscopic ensembles of 1-5 atoms when they are detected by the selective field ionization method. We investigated the spectra of the t…
We investigate a microwave ionization of highly excited atom in a low frequency field and show that such a process may be studied on the bases of map for the electron energy change during the period of the electron motion between two subsequent passages at aphelion. Simple approximate criterion results to the threshold field for transition to chaotic behavior very close to the numerical results. We show that transition from adiabatic to chaotic ionization mechanism takes place when the field frequency to the electron's Kepler frequency ration approximately equals 0.1.
We present a very sensitive and scalable method to measure the population of highly excited Rydberg states in a thermal vapor cell of rubidium atoms. We detect the Rydberg ionization current in a 5 mm electrically contacted cell. The measured current is found to be in excellent agreement with a theory for the Rydberg population based on a master equation for the three level problem including an ionization channel and the full Doppler distributions at the corresponding temperatures. The signal-to-noise ratio of the current detection is substantially better than purely optical techniques.
The coherent interaction between ensembles of helium Rydberg atoms and microwave fields in the vicinity of a solid-state co-planar waveguide is reported. Rydberg-Rydberg transitions, at frequencies between 25 GHz and 38 GHz, have been studied for states with principal quantum numbers in the range 30 - 35 by selective electric-field ionization. An experimental apparatus cooled to 100 K was used to reduce effects of blackbody radiation. Inhomogeneous, stray electric fields emanating from the surface of the waveguide have been characterized in frequency- and time-resolved measurements and coheren…
A simple theory of the Rydberg atoms ionisation by electromagnetic pulses and microwave field is presented. The analysis is based on the scale transformation which reduces the number of parameters and reveals the functional dependencies of the processes. It is shown that the observed ionisation of Rydberg atoms by subpicosecond electromagnetic pulses scale classically. The threshold electric field required to ionise a Rydberg state may be simply evaluated in the photonic basis approach for the quantum dynamics or from the multiphoton ionisation theory.
The relativistic theory of above-threshold ionization (ATI) of hydrogen-like atoms in ultrastrong radiation fields, taking into account the photoelectron induced rescattering in the continuum spectrum is developed. It is shown that the contribution of the latter in the multiphoton ionization probability even in the Born approximation by Coulomb field is of the order of ATI probability in the scope of Keldysh-Faisal-Reiss ansatz.
An array of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice (Mott insulator) excited to a state where single electron wave-functions spatially overlap would represent a new and ideal platform to simulate exotic electronic many-body phenomena in the condensed phase. However, this highly excited non-equilibrium system is expected to be so short-lived that it has eluded observation so far. Here, we demonstrate the first step toward its realization by exciting high-lying electronic (Rydberg) states of the atomic Mott insulator with a coherent ultrashort laser pulse. Beyond a threshold principal quantum numb…
We present a study of the Rydberg spectrum in \ts{166}Er for series connected to the $4f^{12} (^3H_6) 6s$, $J_c=13/2 $ and $J_c=11/2 $ ionic core states using an all-optical detection based on electromagnetically induced transparency in an effusive atomic beam. Identifying approximately 550 individual states, we find good agreement with a multi-channel quantum defect theory (MQDT) which allows assignment of most states to $ns$ or $nd$ Rydberg series. We provide an improved accuracy for the lowest two ionization thresholds to $E_{\textrm{IP}, J_c = 13/2 } = 49260.750(1)\,$cm$^{-1}$ and $E_{\tex…
We present the formation of homonuclear Cs2, K2, and heteronuclear CsK long-range Rydberg molecules in a dual-species magneto-optical trap for 39K and 133Cs by one-photon UV photoassociation. The different ground-state-density dependence of homo- and heteronuclear photoassociation rates and the detection of stable molecular ions resulting from auto-ionization provide an unambiguous assignment. We perform bound-bound millimeter-wave spectroscopy of long-range Rydberg molecules to access molecular states not accessible by one-photon photoassociation. Calculations based on the most recent theoret…
Rydberg atoms are at the core of an increasing number of experiments, which frequently rely on destructive detection methods, such as field ionization. Here, we present an experimental realization of single-shot non-destructive detection of ensembles of helium Rydberg atoms. We use the dispersive frequency shift of a superconducting microwave cavity interacting with the ensemble. By probing the transmission of the cavity and measuring the change in its phase, we determine the number of Rydberg atoms or the populations of Rydberg quantum states when the ensemble is prepared in a superposition. …
We present a spectral analysis of Rydberg atoms in strong microwave fields using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) as an all-optical readout. The measured spectroscopic response enables optical, atom-based electric field measurements of high-power microwaves. In our experiments, microwaves are irradiated into a room-temperature rubidium vapor cell. The microwaves are tuned near the two-photon 65D-66D Rydberg transition and reach an electric field strength of 230V/m, about 20% of the microwave ionization threshold of these atoms. A Floquet treatment is used to model the Rydberg lev…
Rydberg helium atoms traveling in pulsed supersonic beams have been coupled to microwave fields in a superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator. The atoms were initially prepared in the 1s55s $^3$S$_1$ Rydberg level by two-color two-photon laser excitation from the metastable 1s2s $^3$S$_1$ level. Two-photon microwave transitions between the 1s55s $^3$S$_1$ and 1s56s $^3$S$_1$ levels were then driven by the 19.556 GHz third-harmonic microwave field in a quarter-wave CPW resonator. This superconducting microwave resonator was fabricated from niobium nitride on a silicon substrate and op…
The coherent interaction of Rydberg helium atoms with microwave fields in a $λ/4$ superconducting coplanar waveguide resonator has been exploited to probe the spectral characteristics of an individual resonator mode. This was achieved by preparing the atoms in the 1s55s$^3$S$_1$ Rydberg level by resonance enhanced two-color two-photon excitation from the metastable 1s2s$^3$S$_1$ level. The atoms then travelled over the resonator in which the third harmonic microwave field, at a frequency of $ω_{\mathrm{res}}=2π\times19.556$ GHz, drove the two-photon 1s55s$^3$S$_1\rightarrow$1s56s$^3$S$_1$ tran…
We study the counterpart of Anderson localization in driven one-electron Rydberg atoms. By changing the initial Rydberg state at fixed microwave frequency and interaction time, we numerically monitor the crossover from Anderson localization to the photo effect in the atomic ionization signal.
High-resolution spectroscopy of 162Dy Rydberg levels
Università degli Studi di Firenze(佛罗伦萨大学);European Laboratory for Nonlinear Spectroscopy (LENS)(欧洲非线性光谱学实验室);Istituto Nazionale di Ottica, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR-INO)(意大利国家光学研究所)
We study theoretically the dipole radiation of a hydrogen atom driven by an intense sub-cycle pulse. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the system is solved by ab initio calculation to obtain the dipole response. Remarkably, a narrowband emission lasting longer than the driving pulse appears at a frequency just above the ionization threshold. An additional calculation using the strong field approximation also recovers this emission, which suggests that it corresponds to the oscillation of nearly-bound electrons that behave similarly to Rydberg electrons. The predicted phenomenon is un…