Collective state synthesis in an optical cavity using Rydberg atom blockade

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how to coherently manipulate Rydberg atoms inside an optical cavity to deterministically generate non-classical light states, utilizing Rydberg blockade and collective atomic states.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme for collective state synthesis in Rydberg atoms within an optical cavity, combining Rydberg blockade with advanced excitation techniques.

Findings

Non-classical light states can be generated via the proposed method.

The collective atomic state is effectively coupled to the cavity field.

Decay mechanisms influence the fidelity of state preparation.

Abstract

We investigate the coherent manipulation of interacting Rydberg atoms placed inside a high-finesse optical cavity for the deterministic preparation of strongly coupled light-matter systems. We consider a four-level diamond scheme with one common Rydberg level for N interacting atoms. One side of the diamond is used to excite the atoms into a collective `superatom' Rydberg state using either {\pi}-pulses or stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) pulses. The upper transition on the other side of the diamond is used to transfer the collective state to one that is coupled to a field mode of an optical cavity. Due to the strong interaction between the atoms in the Rydberg level, the Rydberg blockade mechanism plays a key role in the deterministic quantum state synthesis of the atoms in the cavity. We use numerical simulation to show that non-classical states of light can be generated and that the state that is coupled to the cavity field is a collective one. We also investigate how different decay mechanisms affect this interacting many-body system. We also analyze our system in the case of two Rydberg excitations within the blockade volume. The simulations are carried out with parameters corresponding to realizable high-finesse optical cavities and alkali atoms like rubidium.