title: Demonstration of a strong Rydberg blockade in three-atom systems with anisotropic interactions.
abstract: We study the Rydberg blockade in a system of three atoms arranged in different two-dimensional geometries (linear and triangular configurations). In the strong blockade regime, we observe high-contrast, coherent collective oscillations of the single excitation probability and an almost perfect van der Waals blockade. Our data are consistent with a total population in doubly and triply excited states below 2%. In the partial blockade regime, we directly observe the anisotropy of the van der Waals interactions between |nD> Rydberg states in the triangular configuration. A simple model that only uses independently measured two-body van der Waals interactions fully reproduces the dynamics of the system without any adjustable parameter. These results are extremely promising for scalable quantum information processing and quantum simulation with neutral atoms.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Barredo
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ravets
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Labuhn
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Béguin
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vernier
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nogrette
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lahaye
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique, CNRS, Univ Paris Sud, 2 avenue Augustin Fresnel, 91127 Palaiseau cedex, France.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Browaeys