Schmidt, R.Whalen, J.D.Ding, R.Camargo, F.Woehl, G. Jr.Yoshida, S.Burgdörfer, J.Dunning, F.B.Demler, E.Sadeghpour, H.R.Killian, T.C.2018-07-162018-07-162018Schmidt, R., Whalen, J.D., Ding, R., et al.. "Theory of excitation of Rydberg polarons in an atomic quantum gas." <i>Physical Review A,</i> 97, no. 2 (2018) American Physical Society: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.97.022707.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/102426We present a quantum many-body description of the excitation spectrum of Rydberg polarons in a Bose gas. The many-body Hamiltonian is solved with a functional determinant approach, and we extend this technique to describe Rydberg polarons of finite mass. Mean-field and classical descriptions of the spectrum are derived as approximations of the many-body theory. The various approaches are applied to experimental observations of polarons created by excitation of Rydberg atoms in a strontium Bose-Einstein condensate.engArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.Journal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.97.022707