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Simulations of prompt many-body ionization in a frozen Rydberg gas

The results of a theoretical investigation of prompt many-body ionization are reported. Our calculations address an experiment that reported ionization in Rydberg gases for densities two orders of magnitude less than expected from ionization between pairs of atoms. The authors argued that the results were due to the simultaneous interaction between many atoms. We performed classical calculations for many interacting Rydberg atoms with the ions fixed in space and have found that the many atom interaction does allow ionization at lower densities than estimates from two atom interactions. However, we found that the density fluctuations in a gas play a larger role. These two effects are an order of magnitude too small to account for the experimental results suggesting at least one other mechanism strongly affects ionization.