Doppler sensitivity and resonant tuning of Rydberg atom-based antennas

Abstract Radio frequency antennas based on Rydberg atom vapor cells can in principle reach sensitivities beyond those of any conventional wire antenna, especially at lower frequencies where very long wires are needed to accommodate the growing wavelength. They also have other desirable features such as nonmetallic, hence lower profile, elements. This paper presents a detailed theoretical investigation of Rydberg antenna sensitivity, elucidating parameter regimes that could cumulatively lead to 2--3 orders of magnitude sensitivity increase beyond that of currently tested configurations. The key insight is to optimally combine the advantages of two well-studied approaches: (i) three laser ``2D star configuration'' setups that, enhanced as well with increased laser power, to some degree compensate for atom motion-induced Doppler broadening, and (ii) resonant coupling between a pair of near-degenerate Rydberg levels, tuned via a local oscillator to the incident signal of interest. The advantage of the star setup is subtle because it only restores overall sensitivity to the expected Doppler-limited value, compensating for additional significant off-resonance reductions where differently moving atom sub-populations actually destructively interfere with each other in the net signal. The additional unique advantage of the local oscillator tuning is that it leads to vastly narrower line widths, as low as \, 10 kHz set by the intrinsic Rydberg state lifetimes, rather than the typical \, 10 MHz scale set by the core state lifetimes. Intuitively, with this setup the two Rydberg states may be tuned to act as an independent high-q cavity, a point of view supported through a study of the frequency-dependence of the antenna resonant response. There are a number of practical experimental advances, especially larger \, 1 cm laser beam widths, required to suppress various extrinsic line broadening effects and to fully exploit this ``Rydberg superheterodyne'' response.