Rydberg optical Feshbach resonances in cold gases

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method to control atomic interactions in cold gases by using laser-induced coupling to Rydberg molecular states, enabling precise tuning of scattering properties with minimal losses.

Contribution

It presents a novel scheme for optical Feshbach resonances leveraging Rydberg states, allowing efficient and tunable control of scattering lengths in cold atomic gases.

Findings

Effective tuning of optical length and pole strength over several orders of magnitude.

Minimized incoherent processes and losses during tuning.

Applicable to various atomic pairs and scattering types.

Abstract

We propose a novel scheme to efficiently tune the scattering length of two colliding ground-state atoms by off-resonantly coupling the scattering-state to an excited Rydberg-molecular state using laser light. For the s-wave scattering of two colliding ${^{87}}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms, we demonstrate that the effective optical length and pole strength of this Rydberg optical Feshbach resonance can be tuned over several orders of magnitude, while incoherent processes and losses are minimised. Given the ubiquity of Rydberg molecular states, this technique should be generally applicable to homo-nuclear atomic pairs as well as to atomic mixtures with s-wave (or even p-wave) scattering.