Modeling few-body phenomena in an ultracold Rydberg gas Original Research Article

Gases of ultracold Rydberg atoms represent ideal systems for studying two-body and many-body effects induced by long-range dipolar interactions. We present two examples of modeling few-body phenomena in these gases: A model for the excitation of an atom cloud into Rydberg states featuring a modification of the distribution of pair distances, and a quantum mechanical model to describe coherent few-body resonant energy transfer. Both scenarios have recently been investigated experimentally. The models involve Monte Carlo algorithms to reflect the unordered nature of the gas in the experiments. Excellent agreement between experiment and model description demonstrates that few-body effects play an important role in the dynamics of ultracold Rydberg gases.