Strongly correlated gases of Rydberg-dressed atoms: quantum and classical dynamics

TL;DR

This paper explores how weakly admixing Rydberg states into alkali gases creates long-range interactions, enabling the study of strongly correlated phases and the effects of spontaneous emission as a heating mechanism.

Contribution

It introduces techniques for engineering long-range interactions in alkali gases and analyzes the quantum-classical crossover due to spontaneous emission.

Findings

Residual spontaneous emission causes heating in Rydberg-dressed gases.

Quantum phases with dipole-dipole interactions are achievable in harmonic traps.

Spontaneous emission leads to a transition from quantum to classical behavior.

Abstract

We discuss techniques to generate long-range interactions in a gas of groundstate alkali atoms, by weakly admixing excited Rydberg states with laser light. This provides a tool to engineer strongly correlated phases with reduced decoherence from inelastic collisions and spontaneous emission. As an illustration, we discuss the quantum phases of dressed atoms with dipole-dipole interactions confined in a harmonic potential, as relevant to experiments. We show that residual spontaneous emission from the Rydberg state acts as a heating mechanism, leading to a quantum-classical crossover.