# Rydberg excitation of cold atoms inside a hollow core fiber

## TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first successful excitation of cold Rydberg atoms inside a hollow core fiber, revealing two regimes of Rydberg EIT and advancing potential quantum simulation applications.

## Contribution

It introduces a controllable hybrid cold Rydberg atom fiber interface and studies the influence of the fiber on Rydberg EIT signals, a novel experimental achievement.

## Key findings

- Observation of Rydberg EIT inside a hollow core fiber
- Identification of two excitation regimes: EIT and atom loss
- Potential for quantum simulation and information processing

## Abstract

We report on a versatile, highly controllable hybrid cold Rydberg atom fiber interface, based on laser cooled atoms transported into a hollow core Kagom\'{e} crystal fiber. Our experiments are the first to demonstrate the feasibility of exciting cold Rydberg atoms inside a hollow core fiber and we study the influence of the fiber on Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) signals. Using a temporally resolved detection method to distinguish between excitation and loss, we observe two different regimes of the Rydberg excitations: one EIT regime and one regime dominated by atom loss. These results are a substantial advancement towards future use of our system for quantum simulation or information.