Spectral shift and dephasing of electromagnetically induced transparency in an interacting Rydberg gas

摘要

We perform spectroscopic measurements of electromagnetically inducedtransparency (EIT) in a strongly interacting Rydberg gas, and observe asignificant spectral shift of the transparency from the single-atom EITresonance as well as a spectral dephasing of the same order. We characterizethe shift and dephasing as a function of atomic density, probe Rabi frequency,and principal quantum number of Rydberg states, and demonstrate that theobserved spectral shift and dephasing are reduced if the size of a Gaussianatomic cloud is increased. We simulate our experiment with a semi-analyticalmodel, which gives results in good agreement with our experimental data.