Interactions of cold Rydberg atoms and metallic surfaces

Abstract

We theoretically propose that electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) with cold Rydberg atoms in the proximity to a metallic chip surface can be applied to detect and investigate the Casimir–Polder effect. The absorption spectrum of the probe laser is numerically computed by the Monte Carlo method, taking into account atom-surface interactions (Casimir–Polder effect). The results show that the Casimir–Polder effect shifts the energy level of the Rydberg state and leads to a shift in the EIT transparency window. The shift of resonant frequency depends on the principal quantum number, atom-surface distance and atomic density. The atom-surface interactions have observable impacts on the nonlinear optic response of the ‘Rydberg EIT medium’ near atom chips.