RUI: Many-Body Effects in a Frozen Rydberg Gas

该RUI奖为冷、密里德伯原子样品碰撞的研究项目提供支持。在这种环境中，里德伯原子通过偶极相互作用强耦合。两个新特征定义了这种环境。首先，在碰撞持续的时间里，原子移动的距离明显小于它们的平均距离。其次，平均原子分离小于冲击参数，表明多体效应很重要。因此，致密的冷里德伯原子样品的相互作用不太像“正常”气体中的相互作用，而更像弥漫液体或无序固体的特征。术语“冷冻气体”被用来描述这种环境。将进行两个主要的研究领域：1)冷冻气体中的激子过程，其中将研究激子扩散模型的各种预测，用于种群远离紧密原子的迁移；2)多体状态下多光子辐射辅助碰撞的初步研究。由于在一个拥有大量物理专业的本科院校，这个研究项目为希望继续读研究生或进入先进高科技劳动力的学生提供了教育准备。

This RUI award provides support for a research program on collisions of cold, dense samples of Rydberg atoms. The Rydberg atoms in this environment are strongly coupled by the dipole interaction. Two novel features define this environment. First, the atoms move a distance that is significantly less than their mean separation during the time the collision lasts. Second, the mean atomic separation is less than the impact parameter, indicating that many-body effects are important. The interactions of a dense sample of cold Rydberg atoms are therefore less like those in a "normal" gas, and more like those characteristic of a diffuse liquid or disordered solid. The term "frozen gas" has been used to describe this environment. Two major areas of research will be pursued: 1) Exciton processes in a frozen gas, in which various predictions of an exciton diffusion model for migration of population away from close atoms will be investigated and 2) Preliminary investigations of multiphoton radiatively assisted collisions in the many-body regime. By virtue of being at an undergraduate institution with a significant number of physics majors, this research program offers educational preparation for students wishing to continue on to graduate school or enter the advanced high-tech workforce.