Title: Circular Rydberg Atoms for quantum simulations
Speaker: Michel Brune
Time: Nov. 13th (Mon.), 15:30
Location: Room 215
Abstract:
Neutral atoms in optical tweezers promoted to Rydberg states are one of the most promising platforms for quantum simulation. Due to their exceptional lifetime, circular Rydberg atoms additionally offer an unprecedented potential for being trapped for timescale ranging from tenth of ms up to minutes when implementing spontaneous emission inhibition in cryogenic environments.
With rubidium atoms, we demonstrated the trapping at millisecond timescale of individual circular Rydberg atoms in bottle beam tweezers [1]. More recently we fully characterized the dipole-dipole interaction between two circular atoms. This achievement paves the route to first quantum simulations on exceptional timescale for e.g. investigation of out-of-equilibrium phenomena.
We also developed a platform based on strontium, which offers a variety of possibilities for local optical manipulation of a circular atom by locally addressing its second valence electron with focussed lasers. We demonstrated the coherent optical manipulation of a circular state using its quadrupole coupling with the metastable 5d state of the ionic core [3,4]. We also observed laser cooling of a circular atom using the radiation pressure of a laser resonant with the ionic core [5]. This makes Sr circular states very promising candidates for merging quantum technology developed in the context of trapped ions with that based on the manipulation of Rydberg atoms.
[1] T. L. Nguyen, J. M. Raimond, C. Sayrin, R. Cortiñas, T. Cantat-Moltrecht, F. Assemat, I. Dotsenko, S. Gleyzes, S. Haroche, G. Roux, Th. Jolicoeur, and M. Brune, Phys. Rev. X, 8, 011032 (2018).
[2] B. Ravon et al., arXiv:2304.04831.
[3] R. C. Teixeira, A. Larrouy, A. Muni, L. Lachaud, J.-M. Raimond , S. Gleyzes ,1 and M. Brune, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 263001 (2020)
[4] A. Muni, L. Lachaud, A. Couto, M. Poirier, R. C. Teixeira, J-M. Raimond, M. Brune, S. Gleyzes, Nature Physics, accepted, arXiv:2111.14504.
[5] L. Lachaud et al., in preparation.
Bio:
Michel Brune graduated at Ecole Normale Supérieure. He performed his PhD work on the realization of a two-photon micromaser under the supervision of Serge Haroche. He then bercame permanent CNRS researcher at Laboratoire Kastler Brossel in the cavity QED team lead by Serge Haroche and Jean-Michel Raimond. He performed cavity QED experiments involving high Q superconducting microwave resonators and circular Rydberg atoms used as extremely sensitive probes of the cavity radiation field. He performed experiments achieving quantum nondemolition photon counting and revealing essential features of quantum measurement like collapse of the state, repeatability of the measurement and observation of quantum jumps of light. He also prepared Schrödinger cat sates of the cavity field and studied their decoherence, performing experiments at the fuzzy boundary between the quantum and the classical worlds. He also performed experiments in the field of quantum information manipulation. He is now starting a project of quantum simulation based on cold, trapped, circular Rydberg atoms.
