Interaction Induced Motional Effects on the Facilitation Dynamics of Driven Rydberg Gases

Rydberg atoms can interact strongly over very large distances leading to effects such as blockade or facilitation of excitations in a gas of atoms driven by a laser field. In the presence of slow decay processes this gives rise to complex many-body phenoma, such as self-organized criticality. Here, thermal motion of Rydberg atoms as well as mechanical effects of the interactions play an important role.

We show that differential mechanical effects of the dipole-dipole interactions on ground and Rydberg state wavefunctions leads to an effective dephasing. We then analyze the many-body facilitation dynamics of Rydberg atoms using Monte-Carlo simulations, valid in the large dephasing limit, and including interaction induced motional effects. In a frozen gas the interplay between facilitation dynamics and decay leads to the buildup of spatial correlations which strongly affect self-organized criticality. We discuss the dependence of the many-body dynamics on the motion and mechanical interactions of Rydberg atoms.