259 research outputs found
Out-of-equilibrium structures in strongly interacting Rydberg gases with dissipation
The non-equilibrium dynamics of a gas of cold atoms in which Rydberg states
are off-resonantly excited is studied in the presence of noise. The interplay
between interaction and off-resonant excitation leads to an initial dynamics
where aggregates of excited Rydberg atoms slowly nucleate and grow, eventually
reaching long-lived meta-stable arrangements which then relax further on much
longer timescales. This growth dynamics is governed by an effective Master
equation which permits a transparent and largely analytical understanding of
the underlying physics. By means of extensive numerical simulations we study
the many-body dynamics and the correlations of the resulting non-equilibrium
states in various dimensions. Our results provide insight into the dynamical
richness of strongly interacting Rydberg gases in noisy environments, and
highlight the usefulness of these kind of systems for the exploration of
soft-matter-type collective behaviour
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