Echo Experiments in a Strongly Interacting Rydberg Gas

When ground state atoms are excited to a Rydberg state, van der Waals interactions among them can lead to a strong suppression of the excitation. Despite the strong interactions the evolution can still be reversed by a simple phase shift in the excitation laser field. We experimentally prove the coherence of the excitation in the strong blockade regime by applying an “optical rotary echo” technique to a sample of magnetically trapped ultracold atoms, analogous to a method known from nuclear magnetic resonance. We additionally measured the dephasing time due to the interaction between the Rydberg atoms.