Borromean three-body FRET in frozen Rydberg gases.
Nat Commun 2015;
6:8173. [PMID:
26348821 PMCID:
PMC4569802 DOI:
10.1038/ncomms9173]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/07/2015] [Accepted: 07/25/2015] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Controlling the interactions between ultracold atoms is crucial for quantum simulation and computation purposes. Highly excited Rydberg atoms are considered in this prospect for their strong and controllable interactions known in the dipole-dipole case to induce non-radiative energy transfers between atom pairs, similarly to fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) in biological systems. Here we predict few-body FRET processes in Rydberg atoms and observe the first three-body resonance energy transfer in cold Rydberg atoms using cold caesium atoms. In these resonances, additional relay atoms carry away an energy excess preventing the two-body resonance, leading thus to a Borromean type of energy transfer. These few-body processes present strong similarities with multistep FRET between chromophores sometimes called donor-bridge-acceptor or superexchange. Most importantly, they generalize to any Rydberg atom and could lead to new implementations of few-body quantum gates or entanglement.
Rydberg atoms are promising platform for quantum simulations, due to their strong and controllable dipole–dipole interactions. Here, the authors predict few-body processes in Rydberg atoms which resemble fluorescence resonance energy transfer in biological setting, and observe them in cold caesium atoms.
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