Field ionization of the frozen Rydberg gas

Abstract

Pulsed field ionization has been used for state selective detection of Rydberg atoms in many contexts, and it has been generally assumed that field ionization is an isolated atom process. While this assumption is valid for room temperature atoms, in which all interatomic interactions are transient, it is not good for the frozen Rydberg gas, in which the same interactions are omnipresent. We describe field ionization of cold Rb atoms in which the dipole-dipole interaction between pairs of atoms alters the field ionization.