Observation of intrastate and interstate facilitation between Rydberg S, P and D levels

Abstract

We report experimental results on Rydberg facilitation, whereby Rydberg levels can be excited off-resonantly in the presence of a nearby Rydberg atom because of Rydberg-Rydberg interactions, for high-lying $S$, $P$ and $D$ levels in rubidium. Facilitation is detected both through an enhancement of the number of excited atoms for off-resonant excitation (either blue or red detuning) and a positive Mandel $Q$ parameter indicating correlated excitation events (super-Poissonian counting statistics). We also calculate the pair-state potentials for the Rydberg states involved and find that our experimental results agree with the expected facilitation conditions for repulsive potentials (blue detuning) and attractive potentials (red detuning), with $P$ and $D$ states exhibiting facilitation on both sides of the resonance. Finally, we investigate inter-state facilitation between two different Rydberg levels (70 $S$ and 70 $P$).