title: GHz Rabi flopping to Rydberg states in hot atomic vapor cells.
abstract: We report on the observation of Rabi oscillations to a Rydberg state on a time scale below 1 ns in thermal rubidium vapor. We use a bandwidth-limited pulsed excitation and observe up to 6 full Rabi cycles within a pulse duration of ∼4  ns. We find good agreement between the experiment and numerical simulations based on a surprisingly simple model. This result shows that fully coherent dynamics with Rydberg states can be achieved even in thermal atomic vapor, thus suggesting small vapor cells as a platform for room-temperature quantum devices. Furthermore, the result implies that previous coherent dynamics in single-atom Rydberg gates can be accelerated by 3 orders of magnitude.
authors.affiliation: 5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Pfaffenwaldring 57, 70550 Stuttgart, Germany.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baluktsian
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schlagmüller
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kölle
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kübler
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Löw
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pfau