Driven-dissipative dynamics of a strongly interacting Rydberg gas

TL;DR

This paper investigates the non-equilibrium dynamics of a Rydberg-dressed cold atomic gas, focusing on the formation of correlated phases and their decay due to dissipation, with potential mitigation strategies.

Contribution

It provides a semiclassical analysis of long-time dissipative dynamics in Rydberg gases, highlighting how active cooling can preserve correlated phases.

Findings

Formation of atomic crystals via Rydberg interactions

Dissipative effects cause heating and melting of phases

Active laser cooling mitigates decoherence and losses

Abstract

We study the non-equilibrium many-body dynamics of a cold gas of ground state alkali atoms weakly admixed by Rydberg states with laser light. On a timescale shorter than the lifetime of the dressed states, effective dipole-dipole or van der Waals interactions between atoms can lead to the formation of strongly correlated phases, such as atomic crystals. Using a semiclassical approach, we study the long-time dynamics where decoherence and dissipative processes due to spontaneous emission and blackbody radiation dominate, leading to heating and melting of atomic crystals as well as particle losses. These effects can be substantially mitigated by performing active laser cooling in the presence of atomic dressing.