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arXiv · 2505.01071

Forces on alkali Rydberg atoms due to non-linearly polarized light

A. Bhowmik·D. Blume
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Abstract

Trapped Rydberg atoms are highly promising candidates for quantum science experiments. While several approaches have been put forward to exert (trapping) forces on isolated Rydberg atoms, a widely applicable lossless technique is lacking. This paper proposes a robust versatile alternative technique that avoids lifetime compromising losses. Our proposal leverages the vector polarizability, which is induced by non-linearly polarized light and is shown to be several orders of magnitude larger than the usual scalar and tensor polarizabilities for commonly used alkali Rydberg series such as the $nS$, $nP$, and $nD$ series with principal quantum number $n$ as low as 30. The resulting force can be used to trap isolated Rydberg atoms over long times, which constitutes a key advance that is expected to impact quantum simulation applications, as well as to generate large light--Rydberg-atom hybrid states, which possess non-trivial position-dependent forces.

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A. Bhowmik, D. Blume. 2025-05-02. Forces on alkali Rydberg atoms due to non-linearly polarized light. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.111.053120

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