Accessing Rydberg-dressed interactions using many-body Ramsey dynamics

Abstract

We demonstrate that Ramsey spectroscopy can be used to observe Rydberg-dressed interactions in a many-body system well within experimentally measured lifetimes, in contrast to previous research, which either focused on interactions near Förster resonances or on few-atom systems. We build a spin- 1 2 from one level that is Rydberg-dressed and another that is not. These levels may be hyperfine or long-lived electronic states. An Ising spin model governs the Ramsey dynamics, which we demonstrate can be used to characterize the Rydberg-dressed interactions. Furthermore, the dynamics can differ significantly from that observed in other spin systems. As one example, spin echo can increase the rate at which coherence decays. The results also apply to bare (undressed) Rydberg states as a special case, for which we quantitatively reproduce recent ultrafast experiments without fitting.