Intensity landscape and the possibility of magic trapping of alkali Rydberg atoms in infrared optical lattices

Abstract

Motivated by compelling advances in manipulating cold Rydberg (Ry) atoms in optical traps, we consider the effect of large extent of Ry electron wave function on trapping potentials. We find that when the Ry orbit lies outside inflection points in laser intensity landscape, the atom can stably reside in laser intensity maxima. Effectively, the free-electron AC polarizability of Ry electron is modulated by intensity landscape and can accept both positive and negative values. We apply these insights to determining magic wavelengths for Ry-ground-state transitions for alkali atoms trapped in infrared optical lattices. We find magic wavelengths to be around 10 $\mu \mathrm{m}$, with exact values that depend on Ry state quantum numbers.