Investigation of dephasing rates in an interacting Rydberg gas

TL;DR

This paper combines experimental and theoretical methods to measure and analyze dephasing rates in a dense Rydberg gas of rubidium atoms, using innovative techniques like rotary echo and EIT, supported by numerical simulations.

Contribution

It introduces two experimental techniques for measuring dephasing in Rydberg gases and provides a detailed analysis supported by numerical simulations.

Findings

Dephasing rates vary with experimental conditions.

Rotary echo and EIT techniques yield consistent results.

Numerical simulations agree with experimental data.

Abstract

We experimentally and theoretically investigate the dephasing rates of the coherent evolution of a resonantly driven pseudo spin emersed in a reservoir of pseudo spins. The pseudo spin is realized by optically exciting 87 Rb atoms to a Rydberg state. Hence, the upper spin states are coupled via the strong van der Waals interaction. Two different experimental techniques to measure the dephasing rates are shown: the 'rotary echo' technique known from nuclear magnetic resonance physics and electromagnetically induced transparency. The experiments are performed in a dense frozen Rydberg gas, either confined in a magnetic trap or in an optical dipole trap. Additionally, a numerical simulation is used to analyse the dephasing in the rotary echo experiments.