Control of Rydberg Interactions and Exotic States of Matter

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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.