Dynamical crystallization in cold Rydberg gases |
|
| Thomas Pohl | |
| mpipks Dresden | |
| Owing to their strong interactions and low-temperatures, ensembles of cold Rydberg atoms behave very much like a "frozen" gas rather than a vapor. In this talk, I will discuss the correlated excitation dynamics of ultracold gases to Rydberg states driven by coherent laser fields. In particular, it will be demonstrated that an ultracold atomic gas, driven by properly chosen laser pulses, can form crystalline structures of Rydberg atoms. In regular arrangements this is shown to allow for the creation of many-atom Schroedinger cat states, and for a complete excitation of the entire sample, as a prerequisite to study collective effects or exciton dynamics in strongly interacting systems. Prospects, for creating and detecting extended, low- and high-dimensional crystals in disordered gases will also be discussed. |