Progress towards quantifying the impacts of state mixing on the Rydberg excitation blockade

Rydberg atoms are ideal for studying quantum phenomenon due to their exaggerated properties relative to ground-state atoms. During excitation, the highly polarizable atoms interact and the resonant frequencies of the atoms are shifted, leading to a suppression of excitation known as the “Rydberg excitation blockade.” In an ideal blockade, many atoms share one excitation and a more complete blockade is achieved when neighboring atoms interact more strongly. However, near a Forster resonance, stronger interactions can lead to the excitation of unwanted states, breaking the blockade. In order to implement scalable quantum computers, the Rydberg excitation blockade must be used in large samples and therefore state-mixing properties must be rigorously studied in order to minimize their negative impacts. We laser cool rubidium atoms to microkelvin temperatures and use state-selective field ionization spectroscopy to determine the distribution of atoms in each Rydberg state. We present preliminary results in which we seek to quantify exactly how much state-mixing reduces blockade efficiency and to determine the number of interacting bodies that lead to large amounts of state-mixing.