Direct detection of n-particle atomic correlations via light scattering

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how light scattering can be used to directly detect and measure n-particle atomic correlations in laser-driven atomic ensembles with dipole-dipole or Rydberg interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a method to directly and individually measure atomic correlations through light scattering in specific detection directions.

Findings

Light scattering encodes information about atomic correlations.

Certain detection directions allow direct measurement of n-particle correlations.

A method to determine optimal detection positions is proposed.

Abstract

The creation and direct detection of n-particle atomic correlations in ensembles of atoms is investigated. For this, we study an ensemble of laser-driven atoms in which either a dipole-dipole or a Rydberg-Rydberg interaction leads to the formation of correlations between the internal degrees of freedom of the atom. We show that light scattering can be used to imprint information about these correlations onto light, and reveal how this information can be extracted from the statistical properties of the scattered light. As main result we find that observation in certain detection directions allows to directly and individually measure n-particle atomic correlations. Complementary, we discuss a method to experimentally determine the interesting detection positions.