Effect of helium surface fluctuations on the Rydberg transition of trapped electrons

TL;DR

This study investigates how helium surface fluctuations at very low frequencies affect the Rydberg transition of trapped electrons, crucial for developing electron-on-helium qubits, and finds significant impact on their dynamics.

Contribution

It provides new insights into low-frequency helium surface oscillations and their influence on electron Rydberg states, aiding qubit stability improvements.

Findings

Surface oscillations strongly affect electron Rydberg transition dynamics.

Estimated oscillation frequencies align with observed effects.

Mitigation strategies for surface fluctuations are suggested.

Abstract

Electrons trapped on the surface of liquid helium is an extremely clean system which holds promise for a scalable qubit platform. However, the superfluid surface is not free from fluctuations which might cause the decay and dephasing of the electrons quantized states. Understanding and mitigating these fluctuations is essential for the advancement of electrons-on-helium (eHe) qubit technology. Some work has been recently done to investigate surface oscillations due to the mechanical vibration of the cryostat using a superconducting coplanar waveguide (CPW) resonator. In the present work, we focus on a sub-hertz frequency range and observe a strong effect of surface oscillations on the temporal dynamics of the Rydberg transition of electrons confined in a microchannel trapping device. We suggest possible origin of such oscillations and find a reasonable agreement between the corresponding estimation of the oscillation frequency and the observed result.