Collaborative Research: Coherent Control of Interactions among Ultracold Rydberg Atoms

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This project is a collaborative effort between Bryn Mawr College and Ursinus College in which we are exploring the coherent control of interactions among ultracold Rydberg atoms with a combination of experimental and computational efforts. When atoms in an ultracold gas are excited to weakly bound Rydberg states, they can exchange energy through a dipole-dipole interaction. In many cases this energy exchange proceeds quickly enough that the atoms are essentially stationary, resembling an amorphous solid. This leads to complicated many-body processes during the energy exchange that can be manipulated with a variety of techniques. We are focusing our efforts on coherently controlling the dipole-dipole energy exchange among atoms by exciting coherent superpositions of initial states, arranging the Rydberg atoms in particular spatial patterns, and manipulating the geometry and timing of the electric field used to tune this energy exchange into resonance. These experiments are helping to expand the toolkit for controlling atomic interactions. We are modeling the experiments using parallel computing resources in order to contribute to the understanding of the complex many-body interactions.Cold Rydberg atoms provide a rich system in which to explore a range of fundamental physics that is of interest to a broad segment of the community. The precision with which both the internal structure of each atom and the spatial arrangement of these atoms can be controlled will allow us to study many-body and correlation effects for a range of configurations. The interest in ultracold gases coupled by long range dipole-dipole interactions has grown rapidly in recent years and is being explored using atoms with large magnetic spins and heteronuclear molecules as well as Rydberg atoms.This project will engage undergraduates, with particular attention to attracting female students, at both Bryn Mawr and Ursinus in computational and experimental research on ultracold Rydberg atoms. Bryn Mawr and Ursinus are small, national liberal arts colleges located in close proximity in southeastern Pennsylvania. Bryn Mawr awards a small number of PhDs and this project will also support a graduate student. The collaborative nature of the project will broaden opportunities for students at both institutions.