- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review A

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Fast and robust detection of single Rydberg excitations in mesoscopic ensembles

Sven Schmidt*, Aaron Thielmann, Thomas Niederprüm, and Herwig Ott

  • *Contact author: agott-publication@physik.rptu.de
PDF

Phys. Rev. A 112, 033114 – Published 24 September, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/964l-npcf

Abstract

We propose a novel nondestructive method for the detection of single Rydberg excitations in a mesoscopic ensemble. The protocol achieves high fidelities on a microsecond timescale and is robust against changes in the probe laser frequency. The technique relies on optical pumping in Autler Townes configuration, whose efficiency is controlled by the presence or absence of a Rydberg excitation. Taking rubidium atoms as an example, we give realistic estimates for the achievable fidelities and parameters. However, our protocol can be transferred to any other atomic species that features multiple stable states. Our protocol is applicable in quantum simulation and quantum information processing with mesoscopic ensembles requiring fast and high-fidelity Rydberg state detection.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (43)

  1. D. Barredo, S. de Léséleuc, V. Lienhard, T. Lahaye, and A. Browaeys, An atom-by-atom assembler of defect-free arbitrary two-dimensional atomic arrays, Science 354, 1021 (2016).
  2. M. A. Norcia, A. W. Young, and A. M. Kaufman, Microscopic control and detection of ultracold strontium in optical-tweezer arrays, Phys. Rev. X 8, 041054 (2018).
  3. A. Cooper, J. P. Covey, I. S. Madjarov, S. G. Porsev, M. S. Safronova, and M. Endres, Alkaline-earth atoms in optical tweezers, Phys. Rev. X 8, 041055 (2018).
  4. D. Jaksch, J. I. Cirac, P. Zoller, S. L. Rolston, R. Côté, and M. D. Lukin, Fast quantum gates for neutral atoms, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 2208 (2000).
  5. M. Saffman, T. G. Walker, and K. Mølmer, Quantum information with Rydberg atoms, Rev. Mod. Phys. 82, 2313 (2010).
  6. S. Ebadi, T. T. Wang, H. Levine, A. Keesling, G. Semeghini, A. Omran, D. Bluvstein, R. Samajdar, H. Pichler, W. W. Ho, S. Choi, S. Sachdev, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, Quantum phases of matter on a 256-atom programmable quantum simulator, Nature (London) 595, 227 (2021).
  7. P. Scholl, M. Schuler, H. J. Williams, A. A. Eberharter, D. Barredo, K.-N. Schymik, V. Lienhard, L.-P. Henry, T. C. Lang, T. Lahaye, A. M. Läuchli, and A. Browaeys, Quantum simulation of 2D antiferromagnets with hundreds of Rydberg atoms, Nature (London) 595, 233 (2021).
  8. H. Levine, A. Keesling, G. Semeghini, A. Omran, T. T. Wang, S. Ebadi, H. Bernien, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, H. Pichler, and M. D. Lukin, Parallel implementation of high-fidelity multiqubit gates with neutral atoms, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 170503 (2019).
  9. T. M. Graham, M. Kwon, B. Grinkemeyer, Z. Marra, X. Jiang, M. T. Lichtman, Y. Sun, M. Ebert, and M. Saffman, Rydberg-mediated entanglement in a two-dimensional neutral atom qubit array, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 230501 (2019).
  10. H. Levine, A. Keesling, A. Omran, H. Bernien, S. Schwartz, A. S. Zibrov, M. Endres, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, High-fidelity control and entanglement of Rydberg-atom qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 123603 (2018).
  11. S. J. Evered, D. Bluvstein, M. Kalinowski, S. Ebadi, T. Manovitz, H. Zhou, S. H. Li, A. A. Geim, T. T. Wang, N. Maskara, H. Levine, G. Semeghini, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, High-fidelity parallel entangling gates on a neutral-atom quantum computer, Nature (London) 622, 268 (2023).
  12. T. M. Graham, Y. Song, J. Scott, C. Poole, L. Phuttitarn, K. Jooya, P. Eichler, X. Jiang, A. Marra, B. Grinkemeyer, M. Kwon, M. Ebert, J. Cherek, M. T. Lichtman, M. Gillette, J. Gilbert, D. Bowman, T. Ballance, C. Campbell, E. D. Dahl et al., Multi-qubit entanglement and algorithms on a neutral-atom quantum computer, Nature (London) 604, 457 (2022).
  13. D. Bluvstein, H. Levine, G. Semeghini, T. T. Wang, S. Ebadi, M. Kalinowski, A. Keesling, N. Maskara, H. Pichler, M. Greiner, V. Vuletić, and M. D. Lukin, A quantum processor based on coherent transport of entangled atom arrays, Nature (London) 604, 451 (2022).
  14. L. Pause, L. Sturm, M. Mittenbühler, S. Amann, T. Preuschoff, D. Schäffner, M. Schlosser, and G. Birkl, Supercharged two-dimensional tweezer array with more than 1000 atomic qubits, Optica 11, 222 (2024).
  15. H. J. Manetsch, G. Nomura, E. Bataille, K. H. Leung, X. Lv, and M. Endres, A tweezer array with 6100 highly coherent atomic qubits, arXiv:2403.12021.
  16. Y. Wang, S. Shevate, T. M. Wintermantel, M. Morgado, G. Lochead, and S. Whitlock, Preparation of hundreds of microscopic atomic ensembles in optical tweezer arrays, npj Quantum Inf. 6, 54 (2020).
  17. K. Gosar, V. Pirc Jevšenak, T. Mežnaršič, D. Babič, I. Poberaj, E. Zupanič, and P. Jeglič, Preparation of ultracold atomic-ensemble arrays using time-multiplexed optical tweezers, Phys. Rev. A 106, 022604 (2022).
  18. M. Ebert, M. Kwon, T. G. Walker, and M. Saffman, Coherence and Rydberg blockade of atomic ensemble qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 093601 (2015).
  19. N. L. R. Spong, Y. Jiao, O. D. W. Hughes, K. J. Weatherill, I. Lesanovsky, and C. S. Adams, Collectively encoded Rydberg qubit, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 063604 (2021).
  20. W. Xu, A. V. Venkatramani, S. H. Cantú, T. Šumarac, V. Klüsener, M. D. Lukin, and V. Vuletić, Fast preparation and detection of a Rydberg qubit using atomic ensembles, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 050501 (2021).
  21. A. Bergschneider, V. M. Klinkhamer, J. H. Becher, R. Klemt, G. Zürn, P. M. Preiss, and S. Jochim, Spin-resolved single-atom imaging of Li6 in free space, Phys. Rev. A 97, 063613 (2018).
  22. I. S. Madjarov, J. P. Covey, A. L. Shaw, J. Choi, A. Kale, A. Cooper, H. Pichler, V. Schkolnik, J. R. Williams, and M. Endres, High-fidelity entanglement and detection of alkaline-earth Rydberg atoms, Nat. Phys. 16, 857 (2020).
  23. R. Tao, M. Ammenwerth, F. Gyger, I. Bloch, and J. Zeiher, High-fidelity detection of large-scale atom arrays in an optical lattice, Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 013401 (2024).
  24. S. H. Autler and C. H. Townes, Stark effect in rapidly varying fields, Phys. Rev. 100, 703 (1955).
  25. A. Reinhard, T. C. Liebisch, B. Knuffman, and G. Raithel, Level shifts of rubidium Rydberg states due to binary interactions, Phys. Rev. A 75, 032712 (2007).
  26. K. Singer, J. Stanojevic, M. Weidemüller, and R. Côté, Long-range interactions between alkali Rydberg atom pairs correlated to the ns–ns, np–np and nd–nd asymptotes, J. Phys. B: At., Mol. Opt. Phys. 38, S295 (2005).
  27. D. Comparat and P. Pillet, Dipole blockade in a cold Rydberg atomic sample, J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 27, A208 (2010).
  28. J. Bender, P. Mischke, T. Klas, F. Binoth, H. Naim, H. Ott, and T. Niederprüm, Competing interactions in strongly driven multi-level systems, New J. Phys. 26, 073012 (2024).
  29. W. P. Wolf and R. J. Birgeneau, Electric multipole interactions between rare-earth ions, Phys. Rev. 166, 376 (1968).
  30. W. Li, I. Mourachko, M. W. Noel, and T. F. Gallagher, Millimeter-wave spectroscopy of cold Rb Rydberg atoms in a magneto-optical trap: Quantum defects of the ns, np, and nd series, Phys. Rev. A 67, 052502 (2003).
  31. R. Cardman and G. Raithel, Hyperfine structure of nP1/2 Rydberg states in Rb85, Phys. Rev. A 106, 052810 (2022).
  32. S. B. S., S. K. Barik, S. Chaudhuri, and S. Roy, Transition frequency measurement of highly excited Rydberg states of 87Rb for a wide range of principal quantum numbers, Opt. Continuum 1, 1176 (2022).
  33. Th. Förster, Zwischenmolekulare energiewanderung und fluoreszenz, Ann. Phys. 437, 55 (1948).
  34. T. G. Walker and M. Saffman, Consequences of zeeman degeneracy for the van der Waals blockade between Rydberg atoms, Phys. Rev. A 77, 032723 (2008).
  35. C.-E. Wu, T. Kirova, M. Auzins, and Y.-H. Chen, Rydberg-Rydberg interaction strengths and dipole blockade radii in the presence of Förster resonances, Opt. Express 31, 37094 (2023).
  36. G. Günter, M. Robert-de Saint-Vincent, H. Schempp, C. S. Hofmann, S. Whitlock, and M. Weidemüller, Interaction enhanced imaging of individual Rydberg atoms in dense gases, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 013002 (2012).
  37. A. Fuhrmanek, R. Bourgain, Y. R. P. Sortais, and A. Browaeys, Light-assisted collisions between a few cold atoms in a microscopic dipole trap, Phys. Rev. A 85, 062708 (2012).
  38. C. Gross and W. S. Bakr, Quantum gas microscopy for single atom and spin detection, Nat. Phys. 17, 1316 (2021).
  39. S. Schmidt et al., Dataset, Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau (2025)10.26204/data/11.
  40. S.-J. Tu and E. Fischbach, Random distance distribution for spherical objects: General theory and applications to physics, J. Phys. A 35, 6557 (2002).
  41. I. I. Beterov and M. Saffman, Rydberg blockade, Förster resonances, and quantum state measurements with different atomic species, Phys. Rev. A 92, 042710 (2015).
  42. P. M. Ireland, D. M. Walker, and J. D. Pritchard, Interspecies Förster resonances for Rb-Cs Rydberg d-states for enhanced multi-qubit gate fidelities, Phys. Rev. Res. 6, 013293 (2024).
  43. J. S. Otto, N. Kjærgaard, and A. B. Deb, Strong zero-field Förster resonances in K-Rb Rydberg systems, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 033474 (2020).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. A 112, 033114– Published 24 September, 2025
  • Received 4 June 2025
  • Accepted 18 August 2025
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation