Collective Rydberg excitations of an atomic gas confined in a ring lattice

TL;DR

This paper investigates the quantum dynamics of Rydberg atoms in a ring-shaped lattice, revealing universal short-time behavior and lattice-dependent long-time dynamics through exact numerical simulations.

Contribution

It provides a numerically exact analysis of Rydberg excitation dynamics in a one-dimensional ring lattice within the perfect blockade regime, including effective Hamiltonian comparisons.

Findings

Short-time dynamics are universal and quantum-dominated.

Long-time behavior is influenced by lattice characteristics.

Effective Hamiltonian approximations align with exact results.

Abstract

We study the excitation dynamics of Rydberg atoms in a one-dimensional lattice with periodic boundary conditions where the atomic Rydberg states are resonantly excited from the electronic ground state. Our description of the corresponding dynamics is numerically exact within the perfect blockade regime, i.e. no two atoms in a given range can be excited. The time-evolution of the mean Rydberg density, density-density correlations as well as entanglement properties are analyzed in detail. We demonstrate that the short time dynamics is universal and dominated by quantum phenomena, while for larger time the characteristics of the lattice become important and the classical features determine the dynamics. The results of the perfect blockade approach are compared to the predictions of an effective Hamiltonian which includes the interaction of two neighboring Rydberg atoms up to second order perturbation theory.