Steady-state, cavity-less, multimode superradiance in a cold vapor

Abstract

We demonstrate steady-state, mirrorless superradiance in a cold vapor pumped by weak optical fields. Beyond a critical pump intensity of 1 mW/cm${}^2$, the vapor spontaneously transforms into a spatially self-organized state: a density grating forms. Scattering of the pump beams off this grating generates a pair of new, intense optical fields that act back on the vapor to enhance the atomic organization. We map out experimentally the superradiant phase transition boundary and show that it is well-described by our theoretical model. The resulting superradiant emission is nearly coherent, persists for several seconds, displays strong temporal correlations between the various modes, and has a coherence time of several hundred $\mu$s. This system therefore has applications in fundamental studies of many-body physics with long-range interactions as well as all-optical and quantum information processing.

arXiv comment5 pages, 3 figures

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• An adjustable-length cavity and Bose-Einstein condensate apparatus for multimode cavity QED
• Opto-Mechanical Pattern Formation in Cold Atoms
• Linear response theory for superradiant lasers
• Spatial Coherence of Light in Collective Spontaneous Emission
• Spontaneous emergence of free-space optical and atomic patterns
• Kibble-Zurek mechanism in the self-organization of a cold atomic cloud
• The 2nd order coherence of superradiance from a Bose--Einstein condensate
• Enhancing Light-Atom Interactions via Atomic Bunching
• Multimode collective scattering of light in free space by a cold atomic gas
• Numerical Simulations Unveil Superradiant Coherence in a Lattice of Charged Quantum Oscillators
• Spectral Analysis of Proton Eigenfunctions in Crystalline Environments
• Ultralong Faraday laser as an optical frequency standard
• A numerical study of the spatial coherence of light in collective spontaneous emission
• Continuous variable entanglement in a cold-atoms mirrorless optical parametric oscillator
• Experimental observation of subabsorption