2013/06/30 by David Petrosyan
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Excitation #Ion #Ionization #Lattice (music) #Molecule #Optical lattice #Physics #Quantum #Quantum mechanics #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics #Rydberg atom #Rydberg formula #Semiclassical physics #Strong Light-Matter Interactions #cond-mat.quant-gas #quant-ph #van der Waals force
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.88.043431
published as Phys. Rev. A 88, 043431 (2013) · modified, expanded ms
arxiv created 2013/09/24 · openalex publication_date 2013/10/28 · arxiv updated 2013/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The competition between resonant optical excitation of Rydberg states of atoms and their strong, long-range van der Waals interaction results in spatial ordering of Rydberg excitations in a two-dimensional lattice gas, as observed in a recent experiment of Schau\ss et al. [Nature (London) 491, 87 (2012)]. Here we use semiclassical Monte Carlo simulations to obtain stationary states for hundreds of atoms in finite-size lattices. We show the formation of regular spatial structures of Rydberg excitations in a system of increasing size, and find highly sub-Poissonian distribution of the number of Rydberg excitations characterized by a large negative value of the Mandel Q parameter which is nearly independent of the system size.