Dressing of Ultracold Atoms by their Rydberg States in a Ioffe-Pritchard Trap

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Rydberg states can be used to modify the trapping potential of ultracold atoms in an Ioffe-Pritchard trap through laser dressing, enabling advanced control of atomic motion.

Contribution

It introduces a method to map Rydberg state features onto ground state atoms using off-resonant laser dressing in a complex magnetic field environment.

Findings

Rydberg states can significantly alter ground state trapping potentials.

Laser dressing enables manipulation of atomic motion in magnetic traps.

The spatially varying quantization axis affects the dressing process.

Abstract

We explore how the extraordinary properties of Rydberg atoms can be employed to impact the motion of ultracold ground state atoms. Specifically, we use an off-resonant two-photon laser dressing to map features of the Rydberg states on ground state atoms. It is demonstrated that the interplay between the spatially varying quantization axis of the considered Ioffe-Pritchard field and the fixed polarizations of the laser transitions provides the possibility of substantially manipulating the ground state trapping potential.