Black-body radiation induced facilitated excitation of Rydberg atoms in optical tweezers

TL;DR

This paper investigates how black-body radiation causes state mixing in Rydberg atoms within optical tweezers, leading to dipolar interactions and dephasing, with implications for quantum many-body systems.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed single-atom study of black-body radiation-induced state contamination and pairwise interactions in Rydberg atoms.

Findings

Observation of characteristic correlations at dipolar length scales.

Identification of the microscopic origin of avalanche excitation.

Evidence of black-body radiation causing state mixing and interactions.

Abstract

Black-body radiation, omnipresent at room temperature, couples nearby Rydberg states. The resulting state mixture features strong dipolar interactions, which may induce dephasing in a Rydberg many-body system. Here we report on a single atom resolved study of this state contamination and the emerging pairwise interactions in optical tweezers. For near-resonant laser detuning we observe characteristic correlations with a length scale set by the dipolar interaction. Our study reveals the microscopic origin of avalanche excitation observed in previous experiments.