| Frozen Rydberg gases are currently of interest for two reasons. First, the atoms in such cold samples only move roughly 3% of the average interatomic spacing during the 1mus time scale of experimental interest, so the interactions between them are almost static, as in a disordered solid. Second, a frozen Rydberg gas can spontaneously evolve into an ultracold plasma, and the ultracold plasma can recombine to form Rydberg atoms.; In this dissertation, I present experimental studies of these collective phenomena of cold Rydberg gases, with emphasis on the experiments done using millimeter waves. The many-body nature of the dipole-dipole interactions in a cold gas of Rydberg atoms is clearly demonstrated in the resonant energy transfer experiment by adding an additional state to the system using a microwave transition. Moreover, the microwave spectroscopy studies show that the attractive dipole-dipole interaction provides the initial ionization mechanism responsible for producing the free ions for trapping the electrons. This suggests an intimate connection between dipole-dipole interaction and plasma formation. |
