Opto-Mechanical Pattern Formation in Cold Atoms
arXiv:1204.4402 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.86.031801
Abstract
Transverse pattern formation in an optical cavity containing a cloud of cold two-level atoms is discussed. We show that density modulation becomes the dominant mechanism as the atomic temperature is reduced. Indeed, for low but achievable temperatures the internal degrees of freedom of the atoms can be neglected, and the system is well described by treating them as mobile dielectric particles. A linear stability analysis predicts the instability threshold and the spatial scale of the emergent pattern. Numerical simulations in one and two transverse dimensions confirm the instability and predict honeycomb and hexagonal density structures, respectively, for the blue and red detuned cases.
submitted to Physical Review Letters
References in corpus (5)
- Self-organization of atoms in a cavity field: threshold, bistability and scaling laws
- Experimental Observation of Modulation Instability and Optical Spatial Soliton Arrays in Soft Condensed Matter
- Mechanisms for Lasing with Cold Atoms as the Gain Medium
- Steady-state, cavity-less, multimode superradiance in a cold vapor
- High-order optical nonlinearity at low light levels
Cited by in corpus (13)
- An adjustable-length cavity and Bose-Einstein condensate apparatus for multimode cavity QED
- Multiple self-organized phases and spatial solitons in cold atoms mediated by optical feedback
- Enhancing Light-Atom Interactions via Atomic Bunching
- Optomechanical transport of cold atoms induced by structured light
- Dissipative structures in optomechanical cavities
- Observation of Optomechanical Strain in a Cold Atomic Cloud
- Multimode collective scattering of light in free space by a cold atomic gas
- Tailored long range forces on polarizable particles by collective scattering of broadband radiation
- Generating multiparticle entangled states by self-organization of driven ultracold atoms
- Coupling of magnetic and optomechanical structuring in cold atoms
- Rotating and spiralling spatial dissipative solitons of light and cold atoms
- Spontaneous atomic crystallization via diffractive dephasing in optical cavities
- Optomechanical self-structuring in cold atomic gases