Nguyen, Thanh-Long

Date: Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Time: 14:00
Place: ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIT E 41.1
Host: Jonathan Home

Towards quantum simulations with Rydberg atoms

Thanh-Long Nguyen
Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Collège de France, ENS, Paris, France

Quantum simulation offers a highly promising way to understand large correlated quantum systems, and many experimental platforms are now being developed. Rydberg atoms are especially appealing thanks to their strong and short-range dipole-dipole interaction [1].
In our setup, we prepare and manipulate ensembles of Rydberg atoms excited from an ultracold atomic cloud magnetically trapped above a superconducting chip [2]. I will show that the interatomic distance in the Rydberg cloud can be efficiently controlled through the laser excitation process. The many-body atomic interaction energy spectrum is then directly measured through microwave spectroscopy. Finally the hydrodynamic expansion of the cloud, driven by the repulsive van der Waals interaction, is recorded and compared to Monte-Carlo simulations [3].
This experimental work opens the route towards quantum simulations of transport in spin chains for which early numerical simulations will be presented.

References
[1] M. Saffman, T. G. Walker, and K. Molmer, Rev. Mod. Phys.82, 2313 (2010)
[2] C. Hermann-Avigliano, R. Celistrino Teixeira, T. L. Nguyen, T. Cantat-Moltrecht, G. Nogues, I. Dotsenko, S. Gleyzes, J. M. Raimond, S. Haroche, and M. Brune. Phys. Rev. A 90, 040502(R)
[3] R. Celistrino Teixeira, C. Hermann-Avigliano, T.L. Nguyen, T. Cantat-Moltrecht, J.M. Raimond, S. Haroche, S. Gleyzes, and M. Brune. Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 013001