Crystalline structures and frustration in a two-component Rydberg gas

Understand

We study the static behavior of a gas of atoms held in a one-dimensional lattice where two distinct electronically high-lying Rydberg states are simultaneously excited by laser light.

• We focus on a situation where interactions of van-der-Waals type take place only among atoms that are in the same Rydberg state.
• We analytically investigate at first the so-called classical limit of vanishing laser driving strength.
• We show that the system exhibits a surprisingly complex ground state structure with a sequence of compatible to incompatible transitions.