Spontaneous emission of a sodium Rydberg atom close to an optical nanofibre

TL;DR

This paper presents numerical analysis of how a sodium Rydberg atom's spontaneous emission near an optical nanofibre depends on various parameters, highlighting potential applications in quantum networking and atomic ensemble manipulation.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed numerical study of Rydberg atom emission near nanofibres, exploring parameter dependencies relevant for quantum communication.

Findings

Emission rate varies with atom-fibre distance and fibre radius.

A fraction of emitted light can be guided along the fibre.

Potential for using this setup in quantum networking applications.

Abstract

We report on numerical calculations of the spontaneous emission rate of a Rydberg-excited sodium atom in the vicinity of an optical nanofibre. In particular, we study how this rate varies with the distance of the atom to the fibre, the fibre's radius, the symmetry s or p of the Rydberg state as well as its principal quantum number. We find that a fraction of the spontaneously emitted light can be captured and guided along the fibre. This suggests that such a setup could be used for networking atomic ensembles, manipulated in a collective way due to the Rydberg blockade phenomenon.