| Localization in excitation number space of a strongly interacting Rydberg gas (2009) | |||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||
| When Rydberg states are excited in a dense atomic gas the mean number of excited atoms reaches a stationary value after an initial transient period. We shed light on the origin of this steady state that emerges from a purely coherent evolution of a closed system. To this end we consider a one-dimensional ring lattice, and employ the perfect blockade model, i.e. the simultaneous excitation of Rydberg atoms occupying neighboring sites is forbidden. We derive an equation of motion which governs the system's evolution in excitation number space. This equation possesses a steady state which is strongly localized. Our findings show that this state is to a good accuracy given by the density matrix of the microcanonical ensemble where the corresponding microstates are the zero energy eigenstates of the interaction Hamiltonian.. Comment: submitted to NJP focus issue on 'Dynamics and Thermalization in Isolated Quantum Many-Body Systems', new version with small corrections in eqs. (9), (10), (11), (15) in the acknowledgement and the references | |||||||||
Details der Publikation | |||||||||
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