Probing interactions of thermal Sr Rydberg atoms using simultaneous optical and ion detection

Hanley, Ryan K.; Bounds, Alistair D.; Huillery, Paul; Keegan, Niamh C.; Faoro, Riccardo; Bridge, Elizabeth M.; Weatherill, Kevin J.; Jones, Matthew P.A.

Abstract

We demonstrate a method for probing interaction effects in a thermal beam of strontium atoms using simultaneous measurements of Rydberg EIT and spontaneously created ions or electrons. We present a Doppler-averaged optical Bloch equation model that reproduces the optical signals and allows us to connect the optical coherences and the populations. We use this to determine that the spontaneous ionization process in our system occurs due to collisions between Rydberg and ground state atoms in the EIT regime. We measure the cross section of this process to be $0.6\pm 0.2\,\,{\sigma }_{\mathrm{geo}}$, where ${\sigma }_{\mathrm{geo}}$ is the geometrical cross section of the Rydberg atom. This result adds complementary insight to a range of recent studies of interacting thermal Rydberg ensembles.

Citation

Hanley, R. K., Bounds, A. D., Huillery, P., Keegan, N. C., Faoro, R., Bridge, E. M., …Jones, M. P. (2017). Probing interactions of thermal Sr Rydberg atoms using simultaneous optical and ion detection. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 50(11), Article 115002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6455/aa6e79

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 21, 2017
• Online Publication Date: May 10, 2017
• Publication Date: Jun 14, 2017
• Deposit Date: May 11, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 14, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
• Print ISSN: 0953-4075
• Electronic ISSN: 1361-6455
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 50
• Issue: 11
• Article Number: 115002
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6455/aa6e79
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1379578