Dephasing dynamics of Rydberg atom spin waves

A theory of Rydberg atom interactions is used to derive analytical forms for the spin-wave pair correlation function in laser-excited cold-atom vapors. This function controls the quantum statistics of light emission from dense, inhomogeneous clouds of cold atoms of various spatial dimensionalities. The results yield distinctive scaling behaviors on the microsecond time scale, including generalized exponential decay. A detailed comparison is presented with a recent experiment on a cigar-shaped atomic ensemble, in which Rb atoms are excited to a set of Rydberg levels.