Trapped Ions in Rydberg-Dressed Atomic Gases

We theoretically study trapped ions that are immersed in an ultracold gas of Rydberg-dressed atoms. By off-resonant coupling on a dipole-forbidden transition, the adiabatic atom-ion potential can be made repulsive. We study the energy exchange between the atoms and a single trapped ion and find that Langevin collisions are inhibited in the ultracold regime for these repulsive interactions. Therefore, the proposed system avoids recently observed ion heating in hybrid atom-ion systems caused by coupling to the ion’s radio frequency trapping field and retains ultracold temperatures even in the presence of excess micromotion.