Quantum critical behavior in strongly interacting Rydberg gases

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum phase transition and correlated phenomena in strongly interacting Rydberg gases, revealing universal scaling laws and critical behavior in driven atomic ensembles.

Contribution

It derives the critical theory for the quantum phase transition in Rydberg gases and links blockade phenomena to universal algebraic scaling laws.

Findings

Identification of a second order quantum phase transition.

Derivation of the critical theory describing the saturated regime.

Universal algebraic scaling law for Rydberg blockade phenomena.

Abstract

We study the appearance of correlated many-body phenomena in an ensemble of atoms driven resonantly into a strongly interacting Rydberg state. The ground state of the Hamiltonian describing the driven system exhibits a second order quantum phase transition. We derive the critical theory for the quantum phase transition and show that it describes the properties of the driven Rydberg system in the saturated regime. We find that the suppression of Rydberg excitations known as blockade phenomena exhibits an algebraic scaling law with a universal exponent.