Abstract
Optical detection of Rydberg states using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) enables continuous measurement of electric fields in a confined geometry. In this paper, we demonstrate the formation of radio frequency (rf)-dressed EIT resonances in a thermal Rb vapour and show that such states exhibit enhanced sensitivity to dc electric fields compared to their bare counterparts. Fitting the corresponding EIT profile enables precise measurements of the dc field independent of laser frequency fluctuations. Our results suggest that space charges within the enclosed cell reduce electric field inhomogeneities within the interaction region.
Highlights
In this paper, we demonstrate the formation of Rydberg dark states dressed by a radio frequency field
That such Floquet dark states can be obtained in conditions accessible to experiment is one of the results of this paper. (In the opposite limit, where the decoherence time is much shorter than the period of modulation, electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) happens as if the applied electric field is static and the experimental signal is the time average of the instantaneous absorption spectrum over the distribution of values of E(t))
We demonstrate the formation of Floquet dark states induced by the application of an ac field to a ladder system involving a highly polarizable Rydberg state, and show that these states display enhanced sensitivity to dc electric fields and provide information on the strength of the dc field independent of the laser frequency
Summary
The 5S1/2 and 5P3/2 states are dressed by the applied field, but their polarizability is too small for any of their Floquet sideband states to be significantly populated at the ac field amplitudes considered here It follows that under the action of the ac field, and provided the relevant relaxation times are much longer than 2π/ωm, one should expect that the Rydberg dark states turn into Floquet manifolds of dark states and that each EIT dip in the absorption spectrum acquires multiple side bands. That such Floquet dark states can be obtained in conditions accessible to experiment is one of the results of this paper. That such Floquet dark states can be obtained in conditions accessible to experiment is one of the results of this paper. (In the opposite limit, where the decoherence time is much shorter than the period of modulation, EIT happens as if the applied electric field is static and the experimental signal is the time average of the instantaneous absorption spectrum over the distribution of values of E(t))
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