Spontaneous emission of a sodium Rydberg atom close to an optical nanofibre

We report on numerical calculations of the spontaneous emission rate of a Rydberg-excited sodium atom in the vicinity of an optical nanofibre. In particular, we study how this rate varies with the distance of the atom to the fibre, the fibre's radius, the symmetry s or p of the Rydberg state as well as its principal quantum number. We find that a fraction of the spontaneously emitted light can be captured and guided along the fibre. This suggests that such a setup could be used for networking atomic ensembles, manipulated in a collective way due to the Rydberg blockade phenomenon. (paper)