Controlled dissipation for Rydberg atom experiments

We demonstrate a simple technique for adding controlled dissipation to Rydberg atom experiments. In our experiments we excite cold rubidium atoms in a magneto-optical trap to 70S Rydberg states, while simultaneously inducing forced dissipation by resonantly coupling the Rydberg state to a hyperfine level of the short-lived 6P state. The resulting effective dissipation can be varied in strength and switched on and off during a single experimental cycle.