The giant size and large polarizibility of Rydberg-atoms, resulting in strong long-range Rydberg-Rydberg interactions, make them ideal to study many-body effects in ultracold and possibly even in hot atomic gases. First I will present our recent work on the coherent control of Förster resonances in an ultracold cloud of Rubidium atoms. We then admix a small fraction of a Rydberg state to the ground state atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate. We have evidence that by this a fraction of the strong Rydberg-Rydberg interaction is transfered onto the ground state atoms and we monitor a corresponding change in the shape of the condensate.
The second part of my talk will address our efforts on Rydberg excitation of thermal atoms in microscopic vapor cells. The goal of this work is to transfer the knowledge of strongly interacting Rydberg gases from ultracold temperatures to the room temperature domain. Here we envision a new and scalable approach to establish strong coupling between light and matter on the single photon level.
10 Minute Talk Title: Formation of NaLi Feshbach Molecules
Since 2007 Senior Scientist - University Stuttgart
2006 PhD, University of Stuttgart, Supervisor: T. Pfau
2000 Diploma, University of Bonn/MIT, Supervisor: D. Meschede & W. Ketterle
1997-1998, Undergraduate studies, Wesleyan University (CT)
1994-1999, Undergraduate studies, University of Regensburg