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M. Weidemüller

Publications and source records attributed to M. Weidemüller.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Anomalous loss behavior in a single-component Fermi gas close to a $p$-Wave Feshbach resonance

We theoretically investigate three-body losses in a single-component Fermi gas near a $p$-wave Feshbach resonance in the interacting, non-unitary regime. We extend the cascade model introduced by Waseem \textit{et al.} [M. Waseem, J. Yoshida, T. Saito, and T. Mukaiyama, Phys. Rev. A \textbf{99}, 052704 (2019)] to describe the elastic and inelastic collision processes. We find that the loss behavior exhibits a $n^3$ and an anomalous $n^2$ density dependence for a ratio of elastic-to-inelastic collision rate larger and smaller than 1, respectively. The corresponding evolutions of the energy distribution show collisional cooling or evolution toward low-energetic non-thermalized steady states, respectively. These findings are particularly relevant for understanding atom loss and energetic evolution of ultracold gases of fermionic lithium atoms in their ground state.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Microwave-engineering of programmable XXZ Hamiltonians in arrays of Rydberg atoms

We use the resonant dipole-dipole interaction between Rydberg atoms and a periodic external microwave field to engineer XXZ spin Hamiltonians with tunable anisotropies. The atoms are placed in 1D and 2D arrays of optical tweezers, allowing us to study iconic situations in spin physics, such as the implementation of the Heisenberg model in square arrays, and the study of spin transport in 1D. We first benchmark the Hamiltonian engineering for two atoms, and then demonstrate the freezing of the magnetization on an initially magnetized 2D array. Finally, we explore the dynamics of 1D domain wall systems with both periodic and open boundary conditions. We systematically compare our data with numerical simulations and assess the residual limitations of the technique as well as routes for improvements. The geometrical versatility of the platform, combined with the flexibility of the simulated Hamiltonians, opens exciting prospects in the field of quantum simulation, quantum information processing and quantum sensing.

quant-ph

Ultrafast Many-Body Dynamics in an Ultracold Rydberg-Excited Atomic Mott Insulator

We report the observation and control of ultrafast non-equilibrium many-body electron dynamics in Rydberg-excited spatially-ordered ultracold atoms created from a three-dimensional unity-filling atomic Mott insulator. By implementing time-domain Ramsey interferometry with attosecond precision in our Rydberg atomic system, we observe picosecond-scale ultrafast many-body dynamics that is essentially governed by the emergence and evolution of many-body correlations between long-range interacting atoms in an optical lattice. We analyze our observations with different theoretical approaches and find that quantum fluctuations have to be included beyond semi-classical descriptions to describe the observed dynamics. Our Rydberg lattice platform combined with an ultrafast approach, which is robust against environmental noises, opens the door for simulating strongly-correlated electron dynamics by long-range van der Waals interaction and resonant dipole-dipole interaction to the charge-overlapping regime in synthetic ultracold atomic crystals.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Glassy dynamics in a disordered Heisenberg quantum spin system

Understanding the dynamics of strongly interacting disordered quantum systems is one of the most challenging problems in modern science, due to features such as the breakdown of thermalization and the emergence of glassy phases of matter. We report on the observation of anomalous relaxation dynamics in an isolated XXZ quantum spin system realized by an ultracold gas of atoms initially prepared in a superposition of two-different Rydberg states. The total magnetization is found to exhibit sub-exponential relaxation analogous to classical glassy dynamics, but in the quantum case this relaxation originates from the build-up of non-classical correlations. In both experiment and semi-classical simulations, we find the evolution towards a randomized state is independent of the strength of disorder up to a critical value. This hints towards a unifying description of relaxation dynamics in disordered isolated quantum systems, analogous to the generalization of statistical mechanics to out-of-equilibrium scenarios in classical spin glasses.

quant-ph

Depletion Imaging of Rydberg atoms in cold atomic gases

We present a depletion imaging technique to map out the spatial and temporal dependency of the density distribution of an ultracold gas of Rydberg atoms. Locally resolved absorption depletion, observed through differential ground state absorption imaging of a $^{87}\text{Rb}$ cloud in presence and absence of pre-excited Rydberg atoms, reveals their projected two-dimensional distribution. By employing a closed two-level optical transition uncoupled from the Rydberg state, the highly excited atoms are preserved during imaging. We measure the excitation dynamics of the $\vert48S\rangle$ state of $^{87}\text{Rb}$, observing a saturation of the two-dimensional Rydberg density. Such outcome can be explained by the Rydberg blockade effect which prevents resonant excitation of close-by Rydberg atoms due to strong dipolar interactions. By combining the superatom description, where atoms within a blockade radius are represented as collective excitations, with a Monte Carlo sampling, we can quantitatively model the observed excitation dynamics and infer the full three-dimensional distribution of Rydberg atoms, that can serve as a starting point for quantum simulation of many-body dynamics involving Rydberg spin systems.

physics.atom-ph

Diffusive to non-ergodic dipolar transport in a dissipative atomic medium

We investigate the dipole mediated transport of Rydberg impurities through an ultracold gas of atoms excited to an auxiliary Rydberg state. In one experiment we continuously probe the system by coupling the auxiliary Rydberg state to a rapidly decaying state which realizes a dissipative medium. In-situ imaging of the impurities reveals diffusive spreading controlled by the intensity of the probe laser. By preparing the same density of hopping partners but then switching off the dressing fields the spreading is effectively frozen. This is consistent with numerical simulations which indicate the coherently evolving system enters a non-ergodic extended phase due to disorder. This opens the way to study transport and localization phenomena in systems with long-range hopping and controllable dissipation.

physics.atom-ph

Relaxation of an isolated dipolar-interacting Rydberg quantum spin system

How do isolated quantum systems approach an equilibrium state? We experimentally and theoretically address this question for a prototypical spin system formed by ultracold atoms prepared in two Rydberg states with different orbital angular momenta. By coupling these states with a resonant microwave driving we realize a dipolar XY spin-1/2 model in an external field. Starting from a spin-polarized state we suddenly switch on the external field and monitor the subsequent many-body dynamics. Our key observation is density dependent relaxation of the total magnetization much faster than typical decoherence rates. To determine the processes governing this relaxation we employ different theoretical approaches which treat quantum effects on initial conditions and dynamical laws separately. This allows us to identify an intrinsically quantum component to the relaxation attributed to primordial quantum fluctuations.

physics.atom-ph

Density matrix reconstruction of three-level atoms via Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency

We present combined measurements of the spatially-resolved optical spectrum and the total excited-atom number in an ultracold gas of three-level atoms under electromagnetically induced transparency conditions involving high-lying Rydberg states. The observed optical transmission of a weak probe laser at the center of the coupling region exhibits a double peaked spectrum as a function of detuning, whilst the Rydberg atom number shows a comparatively narrow single resonance. By imaging the transmitted light onto a charge-coupled-device camera, we record hundreds of spectra in parallel, which are used to map out the spatial profile of Rabi frequencies of the coupling laser. Using all the information available we can reconstruct the full one-body density matrix of the three-level system, which provides the optical susceptibility and the Rydberg density as a function of spatial position. These results help elucidate the connection between three-level interference phenomena, including the interplay of matter and light degrees of freedom and will facilitate new studies of many-body effects in optically driven Rydberg gases.

physics.atom-ph

Buffer-gas cooling of a single ion in a multipole radio frequency trap beyond the critical mass ratio

We theoretically investigate the dynamics of a trapped ion immersed in a spatially localized buffer gas. For a homogeneous buffer gas, the ion reaches a stable equilibrium only if the mass ratio of the buffer gas atom to the ion is below a critical value. We show how this limitation can be overcome by using multipole traps and a spatially confined buffer gas. Using a generalized model for elastic collisions of the ion with the buffer gas atoms, the ion's energy distribution is derived for arbitrary buffer gas distributions and trap parameters. Three regimes characterized by the analytical form of the ion's energy distribution are found. Final ion temperatures down to the millikelvin regime can be achieved even for heavy buffer gases by actively controlling the size of the buffer gas or the trap voltage (forced sympathetic cooling).

physics.atom-ph

Universal three-body recombination and Efimov resonances in an ultracold Li-Cs mixture

We study Efimov resonances via three-body loss in an ultracold two-component gas of fermionic $^6$Li and bosonic $^{133}$Cs atoms close to a Feshbach resonance at 843~G, extending results reported previously [Pires \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 250404 (2014)] to temperatures around 120~nK. The experimental scheme for reaching lower temperatures is based upon compensating the gravity-induced spatial separation of the mass-imbalanced gases with bichromatic optical dipole traps. We observe the first and second excited Li-Cs-Cs Efimov resonance in the magnetic field dependence of the three-body event rate constant, in good agreement with the universal zero-range theory at finite temperature [Petrov and Werner, Phys. Rev. A 92, 022704 (2015)]. Deviations are found for the Efimov ground state, and the inelasticity parameter $η$ is found to be significantly larger than those for single-species systems.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Sympathetic cooling of OH- ions using ultracold Rb atoms in a dark SPOT

We are developing a new hybrid atom-ion trap to study the interaction of ultracold rubidium atoms with mass-selected OH- molecules. The ions are trapped inside an octupole rf-trap made of thin wires instead of the commonly used rods. This ensures good optical access to the center of the trap where the ions can be overlapped with laser cooled rubidium atoms stored in a dark spontaneous force optical trap (dark SPOT). This setup provides high collision rates since the density in a dark SPOT is about one order of magnitude higher than in a standard magneto-optical trap. Further, inelastic collisions with excited atoms are suppressed since almost all atoms are in the ground state. Numerical simulations of our setup using SIMION predict that cooling of the ions is feasible.

physics.atom-ph

Correlated Exciton Transport in Rydberg-Dressed-Atom Spin Chains

We investigate the transport of excitations through a chain of atoms with non-local dissipation introduced through coupling to additional short-lived states. The system is described by an effective spin-1/2 model where the ratio of the exchange interaction strength to the reservoir coupling strength determines the type of transport, including coherent exciton motion, incoherent hopping and a regime in which an emergent length scale leads to a preferred hopping distance far beyond nearest neighbors. For multiple impurities, the dissipation gives rise to strong nearest-neighbor correlations and entanglement. These results highlight the importance of non-trivial dissipation, correlations and many-body effects in recent experiments on the dipole-mediated transport of Rydberg excitations.

physics.atom-ph

Universality of weakly bound dimers and Efimov trimers close to Li-Cs Feshbach resonances

We study the interspecies scattering properties of ultracold Li-Cs mixtures in their two energetically lowest spin channels in the magnetic field range between 800 G and 1000 G. Close to two broad Feshbach resonances we create weakly bound LiCs dimers by radio-frequency association and measure the dependence of the binding energy on the external magnetic field strength. Based on the binding energies and complementary atom loss spectroscopy of three other Li-Cs s-wave Feshbach resonances we construct precise molecular singlet and triplet electronic ground state potentials using a coupled-channels calculation. We extract the Li-Cs interspecies scattering length as a function of the external field and obtain almost a ten-fold improvement in the precision of the values for the pole positions and widths of the s-wave Li-Cs Feshbach resonances as compared to our previous work [Pires \textit{et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{112}, 250404 (2014)]. We discuss implications on the Efimov scenario and the universal geometric scaling for LiCsCs trimers.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Observation of Efimov Resonances in a Mixture with Extreme Mass Imbalance

We observe two consecutive heteronuclear Efimov resonances in an ultracold Li-Cs mixture by measuring three-body loss coefficients as a function of magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance. The first resonance is detected at a scattering length of $a_-^{(1)}=-320(10)~a_0$ corresponding to $\sim 7 $ ($\sim 3$) times the Li-Cs (Cs-Cs) van der Waals range. The second resonance appears at $5.8(1.0) a_-^{(1)}$ close to the unitarity-limited regime at the sample temperature of 450 nK. Indication of a third resonance is found in the atom loss spectra. The scaling of the resonance positions is close to the universal scaling value of 4.9 predicted for zero temperature. Deviations from universality might be caused by finite-range and temperature effects, as well as magnetic field dependent Cs-Cs interactions.

cond-mat.quant-gas

Full counting statistics of laser excited Rydberg aggregates in a one-dimensional geometry

We experimentally study the full counting statistics of few-body Rydberg aggregates excited from a quasi-one-dimensional Rydberg gas. We measure asymmetric excitation spectra and increased second and third order statistical moments of the Rydberg number distribution, from which we determine the average aggregate size. Direct comparisons with numerical simulations reveal the presence of liquid-like spatial correlations, and indicate sequential growth of the aggregates around an initial grain. These findings demonstrate the importance of dissipative effects in strongly correlated Rydberg gases and introduce a way to study spatio-temporal correlations in strongly-interacting many-body quantum systems without imaging.

physics.atom-ph

An experimental approach for investigating many-body phenomena in Rydberg-interacting quantum systems

Recent developments in the study of ultracold Rydberg gases demand an advanced level of experimental sophistication, in which high atomic and optical densities must be combined with excellent control of external fields and sensitive Rydberg atom detection. We describe a tailored experimental system used to produce and study Rydberg-interacting atoms excited from dense ultracold atomic gases. The experiment has been optimized for fast duty cycles using a high flux cold atom source and a three beam optical dipole trap. The latter enables tuning of the atomic density and temperature over several orders of magnitude, all the way to the Bose-Einstein condensation transition. An electrode structure surrounding the atoms allows for precise control over electric fields and single-particle sensitive field ionization detection of Rydberg atoms. We review two experiments which highlight the influence of strong Rydberg--Rydberg interactions on different many-body systems. First, the Rydberg blockade effect is used to pre-structure an atomic gas prior to its spontaneous evolution into an ultracold plasma. Second, hybrid states of photons and atoms called dark-state polaritons are studied. By looking at the statistical distribution of Rydberg excited atoms we reveal correlations between dark-state polaritons. These experiments will ultimately provide a deeper understanding of many-body phenomena in strongly-interacting regimes, including the study of strongly-coupled plasmas and interfaces between atoms and light at the quantum level.

physics.atom-ph

Spontaneous avalanche ionization of a strongly blockaded Rydberg gas

We report the sudden and spontaneous evolution of an initially correlated gas of repulsively interacting Rydberg atoms to an ultracold plasma. Under continuous laser coupling we create a Rydberg ensemble in the strong blockade regime, which at longer times undergoes an ionization avalanche. By combining optical imaging and ion detection, we access the full information on the dynamical evolution of the system, including the rapid increase in the number of ions and a sudden depletion of the Rydberg and ground state densities. Rydberg-Rydberg interactions are observed to strongly affect the dynamics of plasma formation. Using a coupled rate-equation model to describe our data, we extract the average energy of electrons trapped in the plasma, and an effective cross-section for ionizing collisions between Rydberg atoms and atoms in low-lying states. Our results suggest that the initial correlations of the Rydberg ensemble should persist through the avalanche. This would provide the means to overcome disorder-induced-heating, and offer a route to enter new strongly-coupled regimes.

physics.atom-ph

Observation of interspecies Li-Cs Feshbach resonances

We report on the observation of nineteen interspecies Feshbach resonances in an optically trapped ultracold Bose-Fermi mixture of ^{133}Cs and ^{6}Li in the two energetically lowest spin states. We assign the resonances to s- and p-wave molecular channels by a coupled-channels calculation, resulting in an accurate determination of LiCs ground state potentials. Fits of the resonance position based on the undressed Asymptotic Bound State model do not provide the same level of accuracy as the coupled-channels calculation. Several broad s-wave resonances provide prospects to create fermionic LiCs molecules with a large dipole moment via Feshbach association followed by stimulated Raman passage. Two of the s-wave resonances overlap with a zero crossing of the Cs scattering length which offers prospects for the investigation of polarons in an ultracold Li-Cs mixture.

cond-mat.quant-gas