Signatures of strong interactions in Rydberg systems

Strong interactions between Rydberg excitations in cold gases give rise to strong correlations within these samples. Here we present a series of techniques that allow to visualize such correlations either directly, by varying the degree of interaction between the excitations, or indirectly, through the analysis of the full counting statistics (FCS) of the excitation events. Combining the information obtained by both methods provides a more complete characterization of the system, and allows the study of the correlations emerging in the system as a consequence of the strongly interacting nature of Rydberg excitations. © 2016, EDP Sciences and Springer.