title: Dark entangled steady states of interacting Rydberg atoms.
abstract: We propose a scheme for rapid generation of high fidelity steady-state entanglement between a pair of atoms. A two-photon excitation process toward long-lived Rydberg states with finite pairwise interaction, a dark-state interference effect in the individual atoms, and spontaneous emission from their short-lived excited states lead to rapid, dissipative formation of an entangled steady state. We show that for a wide range of physical parameters, this entangled state is formed on a time scale given by the strengths of coherent Raman and Rabi fields applied to the atoms, while it is only weakly dependent on the Rydberg interaction strength.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: D D Bhaktavatsala
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Mølmer