2015/05/26 by Türker Topçu, Andrei Derevianko, Topcu, Turker +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1505.07152
openalex publication_date 2015/05/26 · openalex created_date 2022/09/21 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We investigate the effect of series perturbation on the second-order dipole-dipole interactions between strontium atoms in the 5sns(1S0) and 5snp(1P1) Rydberg states as a means of engineering long-range interactions between atoms. The series perturbation in these atoms enables modifying the strength and the sign of the interaction by varying the principal quantum number n of the Rydberg electron. We utilize experimentally available data to estimate the importance of perturber states, and find that van der Waals interaction between two strontium atoms in the 5snp(1P1) states shows strong peaks outside the anticipated hydrogenic n11 scaling. We identify this to be the result of the perturbation of 5snd(1D2) intermediate states by the 4d2(1D2) and 4dn's(1D2) states in the n<20 range. This demonstrates that divalent atoms offer a unique advantage for generating substantially stronger or weaker inter-atomic interactions than those that can be achieved using alkali metal atoms. This is due to the highly perturbed spectra of divalent atoms and other multivalent atoms that can persist up to high n. Such irregularities can be especially useful in engineering asymmetric Ry blockade requiring the simultaneous presence of both ``weak'' and ``strong'' interactions.