2007/06/30 by Ulrich Raitzsch, Ulrich Krohn, Vera Bendkowsky +5 · 91 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Dephasing #Excitation #Excited state #Feshbach resonance #Ground state #Ionization #Laser #Molecule #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Resonance (particle physics) #Rydberg atom #Rydberg formula #Rydberg state #quant-ph #van der Waals force
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.100.013002
published in Physical Review Letters 100(1), 013002 (American Physical Society) · 4 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2007/10/22 · openalex publication_date 2008/01/11 · arxiv updated 2011/11/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
When ground state atoms are excited to a Rydberg state, van der Waals interactions among them can lead to a strong suppression of the excitation. Despite the strong interactions the evolution can still be reversed by a simple phase shift in the excitation laser field. We experimentally prove the coherence of the excitation in the strong blockade regime by applying an "optical rotary echo" technique to a sample of magnetically trapped ultracold atoms, analogous to a method known from nuclear magnetic resonance. We additionally measured the dephasing time due to the interaction between the Rydberg atoms.