This experimental research program will focus on the properties of Rydberg states of ultracold atoms inside a Holographic Atom Trap (HAT). Having achieved atom densities in excess of 10^15 atoms per cubic centimeter, and cloud sizes of 8 microns or less using evaporative cooling and adiabatic compression, the project will have a unique and promising laboratory for studying a variety of Rydberg phenomena. The plan is to emphasize studies of the so-called blockade effect, where the presence of even a single Rydberg atom in the trap is predicted to preclude excitation of additional Rydberg atoms using the same laser fields. The blockade has tremendous promise for a variety of novel phenomena such as fast quantum state detection and transmission, single photon and single atom sources, and as an entanglement mechanism for neutral atom quantum computation. The broader impact of the program is in the significant undergraduate involvement.
