Vibrationally coupled Rydberg atom-ion molecules

Recently, a new type of a long-range molecule consisting of an ion and a Rydberg atom popularly known as Rydberg atom-ion molecules (RAIMs) has been theoretically proposed [1, 2] and experimentally observed in an ultracold cloud of ⁸⁷Rb atoms [3]. We use a hybrid atom-ion system to create a linear crystal of ions in a Paul trap with RAIMs attached to its either ends to generate ion-mediated Rydberg-Rydberg interactions. We propose a scheme to utilise the common motional modes of a crystal of trapped ions to enhance (facilitation) or suppress (blockade) the probability of forming two RAIMs at the ends of the chain, replacing the typical blockade radius set by the dipole-dipole interaction by the length of the ion crystal. We use detailed Floquet analysis to demonstrate the feasibility of our scheme in the presence of the time dependent rf potential of the Paul trap and identify parameter regimes where the RAIM survives, using an approach based on Landau-Zener-Stuckleberg interferometry which studies the effect of an oscillating field on Landau-Zener (LZ) processes [4], aided by scaling arguments. Lastly, we outline future plans on how these RAIMs could potentially be detected in our hybrid atom-ion experiment [5] without the application of an ion microscope.

[1] M. Deis et al., Atoms 9, 34 (2021).

[2] A. Duspayev et al., Phys. Rev. Research 3, 023114.

[3] N. Zuber et al., Nature 605, 453–456 (2022).

[4] S. Shevchenko, Physics Reports 492, 1 (2010)

[5] H. Hirzler et al., Phys. Rev. A 102, 033109 (2020).