Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary-light polaritons
arXiv:0807.3484 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.163601
Abstract
We propose and analyze a mechanism for Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary dark-state polaritons. Dark-state polaritons (DSPs) are formed in the interaction of light with laser-driven 3-level Lambda-type atoms and are the basis of phenomena such as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), ultra-slow and stored light. They have long intrinsic lifetimes and in a stationary set-up with two counterpropagating control fields of equal intensity have a 3D quadratic dispersion profile with variable effective mass. Since DSPs are bosons they can undergo a Bose-Einstein condensation at a critical temperature which can be many orders of magnitude larger than that of atoms. We show that thermalization of polaritons can occur via elastic collisions mediated by a resonantly enhanced optical Kerr nonlinearity on a time scale short compared to the decay time. Finally condensation can be observed by turning stationary into propagating polaritons and monitoring the emitted light.
4 pages, 3 figures
References in corpus (7)
- Storage of light in atomic vapor
- Dark-State Polaritons in Electromagnetically Induced Transparency
- Quantum memory for photons: I. Dark state polaritons
- Stationary pulses of light in an atomic medium
- A Deterministic and Storable Single-Photon Source Based on Quantum Memory
- Coherent Control of Stationary Light Pulses
- Dark-State Polaritons for multi-component and stationary light fields
Cited by in corpus (38)
- Quantum simulations and many-body physics with light
- Observation of three-photon bound states in a quantum nonlinear medium
- Scaling approach to quantum non-equilibrium dynamics of many-body systems
- Sub-Poissonian statistics of Rydberg-interacting dark-state polaritons
- Wigner Crystallization of Single Photons in Cold Rydberg Ensemble
- Laser-cooled atoms inside a hollow-core photonic-crystal fiber
- Transfer of orbital angular momentum of light using two component slow light
- Demonstration of the Interaction between Two Stopped Light Pulses
- Photon condensation in circuit QED by engineered dissipation
- Experimental demonstration of spinor slow light
- Slow polaritons with orbital angular momentum in atomic gases
- Effective magnetic fields for stationary light
- Confining stationary light: Dirac dynamics and Klein tunneling
- Optical vortices of slow light using tripod scheme
- Coherent photon manipulation in interacting atomic ensembles
- Stationary light in cold atomic gases
- Nonlinear properties and stabilities of polaritonic crystals beyond the low-excitation-density limit
- Photonic band-gap properties for two-component slow light
- Stationary and quasi-stationary light pulse in three-level cold atomic system
- Polaritonic Quantum Matter
- High temperature phase transition in the coupled atom-light system in the presence of optical collisions
- Thermalization of coupled atom-light states in the presence of optical collisions
- Master equation approach for interacting slow- and stationary-light polaritons
- A Weakly-Interacting Many-Body System of Rydberg Polaritons Based on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency
- Simultaneous Trapping of Two Optical Pulses in an Atomic Ensemble as Stationary Light Pulses
- Pulse-splitting in light propagation through -type atomic media due to an interplay of Kerr-nonlinearity and group velocity dispersion
- Mean field theory of weakly-interacting Rydberg polaritons in the EIT system based on the nearest-neighbor distribution
- Bose Condensation of Photons Thermalized via Laser Cooling of Atoms
- Strong photon interactions from weakly interacting particles
- Confinement limit of Dirac particles in scalar 1D potentials
- Experimental Demonstration of Stationary Dark-State Polaritons Dressed by Dipole-Dipole Interaction
- Trapping a Free-propagating Single-photon into an Atomic Ensemble as a Quantum Stationary Light Pulse
- Photon thermalization via laser cooling of atoms
- Light pulse in -type cold atomic gases
- Realization of the driven nonlinear Schrödinger equation with stationary light
- Increasing decoherence rate of Rydberg polaritons due to accumulating dark Rydberg atoms
- Dipolar Bose-Einstein condensate of Stationary-Light Dark-state Polaritons
- Inhomogeneous mass trap for dark-state polaritons in atomic media