Rydberg physics with cold strontium

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• Dr James Millen (Durham University)
• Tuesday 19 October 2010, 11:00-12:00
• Rutherford building, Seminar Room B.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact pjh65.

Atoms in states of high principal quantum number, Rydberg atoms, are much studied due to their extremely large interaction energies. These interactions lead to phenomena such as a collective suppression of excitation, the “dipole blockade”, which in turn leads to highly entangled many-body states. Rydberg gases also spontaneously evolve into ultra-cold neutral plasmas, which are highly correlated many-body classical systems.

All previous cold Rydberg gas experiments use atoms with one valence electron. By using strontium, a divalent atom, we open up a whole new field of study. The second valence electron enables us to probe and control the Rydberg atoms in a previously impossible way. This includes, in our latest work, an elucidation of population transfer in a Rydberg gas at the cold-plasma formation threshold through excitation of both valence electrons.

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