Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Béguin, L
• Vernier, A
• Chicireanu, R
• Lahaye, T
• Browaeys, A

Titel

Direct measurement of the van der Waals interaction between two Rydberg atoms

Ist Teil von

• Physical review letters, 2013-06, Vol.110 (26), p.263201-263201, Article 263201

Ort / Verlag

United States

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

American Physical Society [PROLA]

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• We report the direct measurement of the van der Waals interaction between two isolated, single Rydberg atoms separated by a controlled distance of a few micrometers. Working in a regime where the single-atom Rabi frequency for excitation to the Rydberg state is comparable to the interaction, we observe partial Rydberg blockade, whereby the time-dependent populations of the various two-atom states exhibit coherent oscillations with several frequencies. Quantitative comparison of the data with a simple model based on the optical Bloch equations allows us to extract the van der Waals energy, and observe its characteristic C6/R6 dependence. The measured C6 coefficients agree well with ab initio calculations, and we observe their dramatic increase with the principal quantum number n of the Rydberg state.