Light propagation beyond the mean-field theory of standard optics

Abstract

With ready access to massive computer clusters we may now study light propagation in a dense cold atomic gas by means of basically exact numerical simulations. We report on a direct comparison between traditional optics, that is, electrodynamics of a polarizable medium, and numerical simulations in an elementary problem of light propagating through a slab of matter. The standard optics fails already at quite low atom densities, and the failure becomes dramatic when the average interatomic separation is reduced to around $k^{-1}$, where $k$ is the wave number of resonant light. The difference between the two solutions originates from correlations between the atoms induced by light-mediated dipole-dipole interactions.

References in corpus (4)

• Observation of suppression of light scattering induced by dipole-dipole interactions in a cold atomic ensemble
• Cooperativity in light scattering by cold atoms
• Theoretical formalism for collective electromagnetic response of discrete metamaterial systems
• Cooperatively enhanced light transmission in cold atomic matter

Cited by in corpus (56)

• Superradiance in a Large and Dilute Cloud of Cold Atoms in the Linear-Optics Regime
• Coherent scattering of near-resonant light by a Dense Microscopic Cold Atomic cloud
• Light interacting with atomic ensembles: collective, cooperative and mesoscopic effects
• Many-body subradiant excitations in metamaterial arrays: Experiment and theory
• Optical resonance shifts in the fluorescence of thermal and cold atomic gases
• Collective Dipole-Dipole Interactions in an Atomic Array
• Collective resonance fluorescence in small and dense atom clouds: Comparison between theory and experiment
• Light scattering from dense cold atomic media
• The Collective Lamb Shift of a Nanoscale Atomic Vapour Layer within a Sapphire Cavity
• Coherent Scattering of Near-Resonant Light by a Dense, Microscopic Cloud of Cold Two-Level Atoms: Experiment versus Theory
• Many-body localization in waveguide QED
• Stochastic methods for light propagation and recurrent scattering in saturated and nonsaturated atomic ensembles
• Arrays of strongly-coupled atoms in a one-dimensional waveguide
• Polaritonic modes in a dense cloud of atoms
• Quantum and Nonlinear Effects in Light Transmitted through Planar Atomic Arrays
• Beyond lowest order mean field theory for light interacting with atom arrays
• Geometric control of collective spontaneous emission
• Emergence of correlated optics in one-dimensional waveguides for classical and quantum atomic gases
• Subradiance-protected excitation spreading in the generation of collimated photon emission from an atomic array
• Role of disorder in super- and subradiance of cold atomic clouds
• Interaction of light with planar lattices of atoms: Reflection, transmission and cooperative magnetometry
• Exact electrodynamics versus standard optics for a slab of cold dense gas
• Mesoscopic coherence in light scattering from cold, optically dense and disordered atomic systems
• Maximum refractive index of an atomic medium
• Cooperative quantum-optical planar arrays of atoms
• Collective effects in Casimir-Polder forces
• Light propagation in systems involving two-dimensional atomic lattices
• Induced dipole-dipole interactions in light diffusion from point dipoles
• Population of collective modes in light scattering by many atoms
• Far-field resonance fluorescence from a dipole-interacting laser-driven cold atomic gas
• Disordered Optical Metasurfaces: Basics, Properties, and Applications
• Directional superradiance in a driven ultracold atomic gas in free-space
• Homogenization of an ensemble of interacting resonant scatterers
• Coherent light propagation through cold atomic clouds beyond the independent scattering approximation
• Van der Waals dephasing for Dicke subradiance in cold atomic clouds
• Strong radiative interactions and subradiance in disordered metamaterials
• Stochastic electrodynamics simulations for collective atom response in optical cavities
• Superradiance as single scattering embedded in an effective medium
• Collective suppression of optical hyperfine pumping in dense clouds of atoms in microtraps
• Collective effects in the radiation pressure force
• Efficient simulation of ultrafast quantum nonlinear optics with matrix product states
• Atomic spin-wave control and spin-dependent kicks with shaped subnanosecond pulses
• Near-resonant light transmission in two-dimensional dense cold atomic media with short-range positional correlations
• Optical magnetism and wavefront control by arrays of strontium atoms
• Optical-depth scaling of light scattering from a dense and cold atomic ${}^{87}$Rb gas
• Negative refraction of light in an atomic medium
• Spontaneous symmetry breaking in frustrated triangular atom arrays due to cooperative light scattering
• Point dipole and quadrupole scattering approximation to collectively responding resonator systems
• Photon scattering from a cold, Gaussian atom cloud
• Limits and possibilities of refractive index in atomic systems
• Cooperative field localization and excitation eigenmodes in disordered metamaterials
• Emergence of an Epsilon-Near-Zero Medium from Microscopic Atomic Principles
• Cooperative effects in dense cold atomic gases including magnetic dipole interactions
• Propagation of light in cold emitter ensembles with quantum position correlations due to static long-range dipolar interactions
• Temporal dynamics in the Bragg reflection of light by cold atoms: flash effect and superradiant decay
• Metalens formed by structured arrays of atomic emitters