Quantum Critical Behavior in Strongly Interacting Rydberg Gases

2008/06/30 by Hendrik Weimer, Robert Löw, Tilman Pfau +1 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Critical exponent #Exponent #Ground state #Hamiltonian (control theory) #Phase transition #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Quantum phase transition #Rydberg atom #Rydberg formula #Rydberg state #Scaling #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.101.250601

published as Phys.Rev.Lett.101:250601,2008 · 4 pages, 3 figures, published version

openalex publication_date 2008/12/15 · arxiv created 2008/12/16 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We study the appearance of correlated many-body phenomena in an ensemble of atoms driven resonantly into a strongly interacting Rydberg state. The ground state of the Hamiltonian describing the driven system exhibits a second order quantum phase transition. We derive the critical theory for the quantum phase transition and show that it describes the properties of the driven Rydberg system in the saturated regime. We find that the suppression of Rydberg excitations known as blockade phenomena exhibits an algebraic scaling law with a universal exponent.

Citations

• Renormalization group theory: Its basis and formulation in statistical physics
• Local Blockade of Rydberg Excitation in an Ultracold Gas
• Evidence for Coherent Collective Rydberg Excitation in the Strong Blockade Regime
• Non-Markovian generalization of the Lindblad theory of open quantum systems

Cited by

• Correlations of Rydberg excitations in an ultracold gas after an echo sequence
• Crystallization in Ising quantum magnets
• Integrable open spin chains related to infinite matrix product states