ac electric-field-induced resonant energy transfer between cold Rydberg atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates resonant energy transfer between cold Rydberg atoms induced by an oscillating electric field at 1.356 GHz, revealing how ac Stark shifts enable control of atomic interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to induce and analyze resonant energy transfer in cold Rydberg atoms using an oscillating electric field, expanding understanding beyond previous dc field studies.

Findings

Resonant energy transfer spectra depend on magnetic sublevels.

Spectra are analogous to those induced by dc electric fields.

Different resonances observed for various magnetic sublevels.

Abstract

An oscillating electric field at 1.356 GHz was used to promote the resonant energy transfer process: $43d_{5/2}+43d_{5/2} \to 45p_{3/2}+41f$ between translationally cold $^{85}$Rb Rydberg atoms. The ac Stark shifts due to this dressing field created degeneracies between the initial and final two-atom states of this process. The ac field strength was scanned to collect spectra which are analogous to dc electric-field-induced resonant energy transfer spectra. Different resonances were observed for different magnetic sublevels involved in the process. Compared to earlier work performed at higher frequencies, the choice of dressing frequency and structure of the spectra may be intuitively understood, by analogy with the dc field case.