Direct measurement of the van der Waals interaction between two Rydberg atoms

Understand

We report on the direct measurement of the van der Waals interaction between two isolated, single Rydberg atoms separated by a controlled distance of a few micrometers.

• By working in a regime where the single-atom Rabi frequency of the laser used for excitation to the Rydberg state is comparable to the interaction energy, we observe a \emph{partial} Rydberg blockade, whereby the time-dependent populations of the various two-atom states exhibit coherent oscillations with several frequencies.
• A quantitative comparison of the data with a simple model based on the optical Bloch equations allows us to extract the van der Waals energy, and to observe its characteristic $C_6/R^6$ dependence.
• The magnitude of the measured $C_6$ coefficient agrees well with an \emph{ab-initio} theoretical calculation, and we observe its dramatic increase with the principal quantum number $n$ of the Rydberg state.