Driven-dissipative dynamics of a strongly interacting Rydberg gas

摘要

We study the nonequilibrium many-body dynamics of a cold gas of ground-state alkali-metal atoms weaklynadmixed by Rydberg states with laser light. On a time scale shorter than the lifetime of the dressed states, effectivendipole-dipole or van derWaals interactions between atoms can lead to the formation of strongly correlated phases,nsuch as atomic crystals. Using a semiclassical approach, we study the long-time dynamics where decoherencenand dissipative processes due to spontaneous emission and blackbody radiation dominate, leading to heating andnmelting of atomic crystals as well as particle losses. These effects can be substantially mitigated by performingnactive laser cooling in the presence of atomic dressing.