Frozen Rydberg gases
Markus Reetz-Lamour (Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg)

Atoms in highly excited (Rydberg) states have large polarizabilities leading to extremely long range interactions. At typical temperatures of a MOT the thermal energy and motion is negligible and the dynamics of the atom cloud is completely governed by Rydberg-Rydberg interactions. These interactions can lead to very different processes such as coherent energy transfer or interaction induced motion. I will talk about our experiments exploring the coherent excitation of a frozen Rydberg gas and various aspects of Rydberg-Rydberg interactions.