Local blockade of Rydberg excitation in an ultracold gas.
In the laser excitation of ultracold atoms to Rydberg states, we observe a dramatic suppression caused by van der Waals interactions. This behavior is interpreted as a local excitation blockade: Rydberg atoms strongly inhibit excitation of their neighbors. We measure suppression, relative to isolated atom excitation, by up to a factor of 6.4. The dependences of this suppression on both laser irradiance and atomic density are in good agreement with a mean-field model. These results are an important step towards using ultracold Rydberg atoms in quantum information processing.
Physics Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06269, USA.
D
D
Tong
S M
SM
Farooqi
J
J
Stanojevic
S
S
Krishnan
Y P
YP
Zhang
R
R
Côté
E E
EE
Eyler
P L
PL
Gould