No Arabic abstract
Optomechanical pattern forming instabilities in a cloud of cold atoms lead to self-organized spatial structures of light and atoms. Here, we consider the optomechanical self-structuring of a cold atomic cloud in the presence of a phase structured input field, carrying orbital angular momentum. For a planar ring cavity setup, a model of coupled cavity field and atomic density equations describes a wide range of drifting modulation instabilities in the transverse plane. This leads to the formation of rotating self-organized rings of light-atom lattices. Using linear stability analysis and numerical simulations of the coupled atomic and optical dynamics, we demonstrate the presence of macroscopic atomic transport corresponding to the pattern rotation, induced by the structured pump phase profile
Self-organized phases in cold atoms as a result of light-mediated interactions can be induced by coupling to internal or external degrees of the atoms. There has been growing interest in the interaction of internal spin degrees of freedom with the optomechanical dynamics of the external centre-of-mass motion. We present a model for the coupling between magnetic and optomechanical structuring in a $J=1/2 to J=3/2$ system in a single-mirror feedback scheme, being representative for a larger class of diffractively coupled systems such as longitudinally pumped cavities and counter-propagating beam schemes. For negative detunings, a linear stability analysis demonstrates that optical pumping and optomechanical driving cooperate to create magnetic ordering. However, for long-period transmission gratings the magnetic driving will strongly dominate the optomechanical driving, unless one operates very close to the existence range of the magnetic instability. At small lattice periods, in particular at wavelength-scale periods, the optomechanical driving will dominate.
Light propagating in an optically thick sample experiences multiple scattering. It is now known that interferences alter this propagation, leading to an enhanced backscattering, a manifestation of weak localization of light in such diffuse samples. This phenomenon has been extensively studied with classical scatterers. In this letter we report the first experimental evidence for coherent backscattering of light in a laser-cooled gas of Rubidium atoms.
Besides being a source of energy, light can also cool gases of atoms down to the lowest temperatures ever measured, where atomic motion almost stops. The research field of cold atoms has emerged as a multidisciplinary one, highly relevant, e.g., for precision measurements, quantum gases, simulations of many-body physics, and atom optics. In this focus article, we present the field as seen in 2015, and emphasise the fundamental role in its development that has been played by mastering.
Enhanced sensitivity in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be obtained by the use of noise correlation spectroscopy between the fields involved in the process. Here, we investigate EIT in a cold ($< 1$ mK) rubidium vapor and demonstrate sensitivity to detect weak light-induced forces on the atoms. A theoretical model is developed and shows good agreement with our measurements, enabling the attribution of the observed effects to the coupling of the atomic states to their motion. The effects remain unnoticed on the measurement of the mean fields but are clearly manifest in their correlations.
We have studied the interplay between disorder and cooperative scattering for single scattering limit in the presence of a driving laser. Analytical results have been derived and we have observed cooperative scattering effects in a variety of experiments, ranging from thermal atoms in an optical dipole trap, atoms released from a dark MOT and atoms in a BEC, consistent with our theoretical predictions.