Condensation of Photons coupled to a Dicke Field in an Optical Microcavity

Abstract

Motivated by recent experiments reporting Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of light coupled to incoherent dye molecules in a microcavity, we show that due to a dimensionality mismatch between the 2D cavity-photons and the 3D arrangement of molecules, the relevant molecular degrees of freedom are collective Dicke states rather than individual excitations. For sufficiently high dye concentration the coupling of the Dicke states with light will dominate over local decoherence. This system also shows Mott criticality despite the absence of an underlying lattice in the limit when all dye molecules become excited.

4 pages + supplementary material

References in corpus (7)

• Quantum fluids of light
• Quantum phase transitions of light
• Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in an optical microcavity
• Quantum-fluid dynamics of microcavity polaritons
• Keldysh approach for non-equilibrium phase transitions in quantum optics: beyond the Dicke model in optical cavities
• Dicke Quantum Spin and Photon Glass in Optical Cavities: Non-equilibrium theory and experimental signatures
• From the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard to the Dicke model

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• Generalization of the Tavis-Cummings model for multi-level anharmonic systems: insights on the second excitation manifold
• Spatial dynamics, thermalization, and gain clamping in a photon condensate
• Polarization dynamics in a photon BEC
• One-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in a microtube
• Molecular spectra in collective Dicke states
• Symmetry-breaking in a condensate of light and its use as a quantum sensor
• Long-lived states with well-defined spins in spin-$1/2$ homogeneous Bose gases
• Phases and phase transitions of Bose condensed light
• Cooperative phase transitions in the system of photons and dye molecules