Polaron formation in Rydberg systems and Rydberg excitations as a probe of correlated quantum matter

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Richard Schmidt
• Subject Area: Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas ; Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 428462134

In recent years, Rydberg excitations in atomic quantum gases have become a new frontier to explore mesoscopic quantum impurity problems. Rydberg excitations are dressed not only by low-energy excitations but by molecular bound state which makes them distinct from conventional polarons. So far studies have been restricted to the description of Rydberg impurities immersed in bosonic systems. In this project we will develop novel theoretical tools that allow us to describe Rydberg excitations in fermionic and interacting environment. To this end we combine functional determinant and variational wave function approaches to study the dressing of the impurity by fermionic excitations. Based on these results we will explore Rydberg excitations as a probe of correlations in a many-body environment. To this end we study the relation of the relative the oligmer line strengths in the absorption spectrum to pair and higher-order correlation functions. Moreover, we investigate how Rydberg impurities can be used as an in-situ probe of Feshbach molecule formation and to explore the real-time dynamics of many-body systems using interferometric techniques.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1929: Giant Interactions in Rydberg Systems (GiRyd)