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，在这种原子中，电子在离原子核异常远的地方绕原子核运行。这些原子的特性可以通过改变电子的轨道来改变，使它们“可调谐”。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，里德伯原子可以在宏观距离上与其他里德伯原子相互作用，大约在微米量级。这种相互作用的范围比典型原子-原子相互作用的范围大1000倍以上。这些独特的超远程相互作用在探索量子力学的基本方面以及利用量子力学的独特特征可用于量子工程的应用中具有许多用途。例如，这些相互作用可以用来将原子集合置于量子力学纠缠态，即原子集合作为单个“超级原子”以增强的方式与光相互作用的状态。这些类型的状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伯原子-里德伯原子相互作用势的拓扑结构。这些相互作用将在超冷温度（T1mK）下使用里德伯原子的多色激发进行研究，并进行理论和实验之间的定量比较。电位的拓扑结构将根据规范电位进行研究。将研究受激超原子的消相速率。基态原子-里德伯原子分子也将被研究。铯里德伯原子在超冷气体中被激发，可以看作是电子被束缚的杂质。这些人工杂质可以用来研究以受控方式的缺陷散射的物理特性，这在半导体中是特别重要的。这些研究可以导致对量子简并气体（如质子、孤子和超固体）中高度相关现象的研究。

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.