Observation of strong electric dipole-dipole interactions between two atoms

arXiv:2611.13665v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We have prepared pairs of atoms at densities exceeding $ 10^{16}/\rm{cm}^3$ corresponding to $n\lambdabar^3>10$ and studied how they interact with light. In this regime, the coherent part of the electric dipole-dipole interaction is larger than the dissipative part, and a single photon emission can transfer large momenta (larger than ten times the single photon recoil) to the atoms. For off-resonant laser light, the atoms are dressed with an electric dipole moment of $\approx$ 1 Debye and interact coherently. This light-induced dipole-dipole interaction has been previously observed only in the far-field mean-field regime.