Abstract
We studied the properties of a cold ( ) and dense ( ) atomic Rydberg Cs gas, and found that the observed widths and shapes of resonances in population transfers cannot be explained in the framework of a usual gas model. We propose a “frozen Rydberg gas” model, where the interplay between two-body and many-body phenomena affects in an unexpected way the width and the shape of spectral lines.
- Received 4 August 1997
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.80.253
©1998 American Physical Society