Exciton induced directed motion of unconstrained atoms in an ultracold gas

TL;DR

This paper shows how localized Rydberg excitation in a 3D cold atom cloud induces directed atomic motion and non-adiabatic Rydberg dynamics, revealing conical intersections and enabling quantum chemical studies at larger scales.

Contribution

It introduces a method to induce directed and confined atomic motion in a cold atom cloud via Rydberg excitation, allowing observation of complex quantum chemical effects.

Findings

Atomic motion becomes directed and nearly confined to a plane.

Conical intersection crossings are observable in atomic position and spectra.

Rydberg aggregates can probe quantum chemical effects at larger length scales.

Abstract

We demonstrate that through localised Rydberg excitation in a three-dimensional cold atom cloud atomic motion can be rendered directed and nearly confined to a plane, without spatial constraints for the motion of individual atoms. This enables creation and observation of non-adiabatic electronic Rydberg dynamics in atoms accelerated by dipole-dipole interactions under natural conditions. Using the full $l=0,1$ $m=0,\pm1$ angular momentum state space, our simulations show that conical intersection crossings are clearly evident, both in atomic position information and excited state spectra of the Rydberg system. Hence, flexible Rydberg aggregates suggest themselves for probing quantum chemical effects in experiments on length scales much inflated as compared to a standard molecular situation.