Self-Induced Transparency in Warm and Strongly Interacting Rydberg Gases

Bai, Zhengyang; Adams, Charles S; Huang, Guoxiang; Li, Weibin

Abstract

We study dispersive optical nonlinearities of short pulses propagating in high number density, warm atomic vapors where the laser resonantly excites atoms to Rydberg P states via a single-photon transition. Three different regimes of the light-atom interaction, dominated by either Doppler broadening, Rydberg atom interactions, or decay due to thermal collisions between ground state and Rydberg atoms, are found. We show that using fast Rabi flopping and strong Rydberg atom interactions, both in the order of gigahertz, can overcome the Doppler effect as well as collisional decay, leading to a sizable dispersive optical nonlinearity on nanosecond timescales. In this regime, self-induced transparency (SIT) emerges when areas of the nanosecond pulse are determined primarily by the Rydberg atom interaction, rather than the area theorem of interaction-free SIT. We identify, both numerically and analytically, the condition to realize Rydberg SIT. Our study contributes to efforts in achieving quantum information processing using glass cell technologies.

Citation

Bai, Z., Adams, C. S., Huang, G., & Li, W. (2020). Self-Induced Transparency in Warm and Strongly Interacting Rydberg Gases. Physical Review Letters, 125(26), Article 263605. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.263605

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 5, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Dec 31, 2020
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2020
• Deposit Date: Dec 21, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 4, 2021
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Print ISSN: 0031-9007
• Electronic ISSN: 1079-7114
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 125
• Issue: 26
• Article Number: 263605
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.263605
• Keywords: General Physics and Astronomy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5172568
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.263605