Control of Rydberg Interactions and Exotic States of Matter

该奖项支持对一种奇特类型的原子（所谓的“里德伯原子”）的研究，其中电子在离原子核异常大的距离上绕原子核运行。这些原子的特性可以通过改变电子的轨道来改变，使它们“可调”。“这些原子最重要的特性之一是，当电子被激光激发到一个非常大的轨道上时，一个里德伯原子可以与其他里德伯原子在宏观距离上相互作用，大约是微米。相互作用范围比典型的原子-原子相互作用大1,000倍以上。这些独特的超长程相互作用在探索量子力学的基本方面以及利用可用于量子工程的量子力学的独特特征的应用中有许多用途。例如，这些相互作用可以用于将原子的集合置于量子机械纠缠态，即，原子的集合充当以增强的方式与光相互作用的单个“超级原子”的状态。 这些类型的态在量子信息科学和量子传感领域有许多用途。在这个项目中，该小组将研究如何操纵里德伯原子与电场和磁场之间的相互作用，以便将它们用于量子工程和量子力学的基础研究。他们将研究如何利用磁场和电场来操纵里德堡原子-里德堡原子相互作用势的拓扑结构。这些相互作用将研究使用多色激发的里德堡原子在超冷温度（T1 mK），理论和实验之间的定量比较将进行。势的拓扑将在规范势方面进行研究。将研究激发态超原子的退相速率。基态原子-里德伯原子分子也将被研究。在超冷气体中激发的铯里德伯原子可以被看作是束缚电子的杂质。这些人工杂质可以用来研究物理缺陷散射在一个控制的方式，这是特别重要的半导体。这些研究可以导致量子简并气体中的高度相关现象，如旋子，孤子和超固体的调查。

This award supports the study of an exotic type of atom (so-called "Rydberg atoms") in which an electron orbits the nucleus at an unusually large distance from the nucleus . The characteristics of these atoms can be changed by changing the orbit of the electron, making them "tunable." One of the most important properties of these atoms is that when the electron is excited to a very large-sized orbit using laser light, a Rydberg atom can interact with other Rydberg atoms at macroscopic distances, on the order of microns. The interaction range is over 1,000 times larger than for typical atom-atom interactions. These unique ultralong-range interactions have many uses in exploring fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics as well as applications that exploit the unique features of quantum mechanics that can be used for quantum engineering. For example, these interactions can be utilized to put collections of atoms into quantum mechanically entangled states, that is, states where the collection of atoms acts as a single "super atom" which interacts with light in an enhanced manner. These types of states have many uses in the area of quantum information science and quantum sensing. In this project, the group will investigate how to manipulate the interactions between Rydberg atoms with electric and magnetic fields in order to use them for quantum engineering and fundamental studies of quantum mechanics. They will study how magnetic and electric fields can be used to manipulate the topology of Rydberg atom-Rydberg atom interaction potentials. These interactions will be studied using multi-color excitation of Rydberg atoms at ultracold temperatures (T1mK), and quantitative comparisons between theory and experiments will be carried out. The topology of the potentials will be investigated in terms of gauge potentials. Dephasing rates of excited super atoms will be studied. Ground state atom- Rydberg atom molecules will also be studied. Cesium Rydberg atoms excited in an ultracold gas can be viewed as impurities to which an electron is bound. These artificial impurities can be used to investigate the physics of defect scattering in a controlled fashion which is particularly important in semiconductors. These studies can lead to investigations of highly correlated phenomena in quantum degenerate gases such as rotons, solitons and super solids.