A phonon laser in ultra-cold matter

Abstract

We show the possible excitation of a phonon laser instability in an ultra-cold atomic gas confined in a magneto-optical trap. Such an effect results from a negative Landau damping of the collective density perturbations in the gas, leading to the coherent emission of phonons. This laser instability can be driven by a blue-detuned laser superimposed to the usual red-detuning laser beams which usually provide the cooling mechanism. Threshold conditions, instability growth rates and saturation levels are derived. This work generalizes, on theoretical grounds, the recent results obtained with single ion phonon laser, to an ultra-cold atomic gas, where real phonons can be excited. Future phonon lasers could thus adequately be called phasers.

4 pages, submitted to PRL

References in corpus (6)

• Phonon laser action in a tunable, two-level photonic molecule
• Phonon superradiance and phonon laser effect in nanomagnets
• Nanomechanical Analog of a Laser: Amplification of Mechanical Oscillations by Stimulated Zeeman Transitions
• Collective oscillations in ultracold atomic gases
• Single-particle motional oscillator powered by laser
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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Phonon nanocapacitor for storage and lasing of terahertz lattice waves
• Phonon amplification in two coupled cavities containing one mechanical resonator
• Polytropic equilibrium and normal modes in cold atomic traps
• Classical Rotons in Cold Atomic Traps
• Collective enhancements in many-emitter phonon lasing
• Bump-on-tail instability of twisted excitations in rotating cold atomic clouds
• Equation of state of a laser cooled gas
• Coherent phonon lasing in a thermal quantum nanomachine
• Scalable phonon-laser arrays with self-organized synchronization