Breakdown of the dipole blockade with a zero-area phase-jump pulse

We theoretically investigate the effect of a zero-area pulse on the excitations of interacting Rydberg atoms. The unexpected breakdown of dipole blockade occurs in the strong Rydberg blockade regime, which results from the nonadiabatic character of a phase-jump pulse interacting with the atoms. We also check the effect of the modulation on the final probability of double excitations and find that the switching time should be short enough to observe the breakdown of dipole blockade. ©2009 The American Physical Society