2010/04/30 by Jens Honer, Hendrik Weimer, Tilman Pfau +1 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Crossover #Dipole #Ion #Ionization #Molecule #Particle (ecology) #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Rydberg atom #Rydberg formula #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph #van der Waals force
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.105.160404
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 160404 (2010) · 4 pages, 3 figures Accepted for publication as a Letter in Physical Review Letters
arxiv created 2010/09/17 · openalex publication_date 2010/10/15 · arxiv updated 2012/10/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a method to control the shape and character of the interaction potential between cold atomic gases by weakly dressing the atomic ground state with a Rydberg level. For increasing particle densities, a crossover takes place from a two-particle interaction into a collective many-body interaction, where the dipole-dipole or van der Waals blockade phenomenon between the Rydberg levels plays a dominant role. We study the influence of these collective interaction potentials on a Bose-Einstein condensate and present the optimal parameters for its experimental detection.