MvL-Kolloquium: Prof. Dr. Tilman Pfau

Highly excited atoms named after Janne Rydberg have played an important role throughout the history of atomic physics. This is because they have extreme properties, mostly because of their size, which scales like n². Here n is the principle quantum number. In our lab we can excite and control Rydberg atoms up to n>200, which means that the electron obits can have a diameter as large as 8 micrometers. At the same time they can be ultracold such that very weak effects give rise to novel bound states, which are based on binding mechanisms which are not discussed in a standard chemistry text book. We discuss two examples of such mechanisms and can directly measure the structure and the dynamics of these “monster molecules” under an ion microscope. The extreme properties of Rydberg atoms also include their strong mutual interaction. This giant interaction is the key to conditional gate operations, which is the basis for neutral atom based quantum computing, which we will discuss briefly as an outlook.