Exotic quantum clusters and non-equilibrium dynamics of Rydberg excitations in one-dimensional optical lattices

In this mini-review, we report results from M. Mattioli, et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 165302 (2013)], M. Dalmonte, et al. [Phys. Rev. B 92, 045106 (2015)] and M. Mattioli, et al. [New J. Phys. 17, 113039 (2015)], where it is shown that Rydberg atoms trapped in one-dimensional optical lattices are a useful tool to investigate the equilibrium phase diagram and the non-equilibrium dynamics of extended Hubbard models and Kinetically Constrained Models, respectively. Atoms weakly-dressed to an high-lying Rydberg state, which interact with a constant potential extended over several lattice sites, can be in an exotic quantum liquid state, the cluster Luttinger liquid phase [42, 43]. Furthermore, we show how a many-body model of interacting three-level atoms in the V-shaped configuration, where one of the level is a Rydberg state, might relax to equilibrium according to the same rules, so-called kinetic constraints, which are known to reproduce the characteristic dynamical arrest and separation of timescales of real glass-forming materials [62].