Threshold of a Random Laser with Cold Atoms

Abstract

We address the problem of achieving an optical random laser with a cloud of cold atoms, in which gain and scattering are provided by the same atoms. The lasing threshold can be defined using the on-resonance optical thickness b0 as a single critical parameter. We predict the threshold quantitatively, as well as power and frequency of the emitted light, using two different light transport models and the atomic polarizability of a strongly-pumped two-level atom. We find a critical b0 on the order of 300, which is within reach of state-of-the-art cold-atom experiments. Interestingly, we find that random lasing can already occur in a regime of relatively low scattering.

Note that Eq. (3) of the published version in PRL contains a misprint. The correct expression is given here

References in corpus (4)

• Strong Interactions in Multimode Random Lasers
• Supporting Online Material for "Strong Interactions in Multimode Random Lasers"
• Dynamic light diffusion, Anderson localization and lasing in disordered inverted opals: 3D ab-initio Maxwell-Bloch computation
• Mechanisms for Lasing with Cold Atoms as the Gain Medium

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