Entangling Atomic Spins with a Strong Rydberg-Dressed Interaction

The spin degrees of freedom of ultracold neutral atoms in their ground electronic state provide a natural platform for quantum information processing. Given their long coherence times and our ability to control them with magneto-optical fields, a primary goal of the field is the demonstration of high-fidelity entangling interactions among spins. Toward this end, we have developed a Rydberg-dressed interaction between the spins of individually trapped cesium atoms, which has the advantage of being both tunable and strong, with demonstrated energy shifts of order 1 MHz in units of Planck's constant. We employ this interaction to produce entanglement between neutral atoms and investigate the potential of this technique for high-fidelity quantum control.