Self-induced cooling of optically bound pairs of atoms

Abstract

The light scattered by cold atoms induces mutual optical forces between them, which can lead to bound states. In addition to the trapping potential, this light-induced interaction generates a velocity-dependent force which damps or amplifies the stretching vibrational mode of the two-atom "molecule". This velocity-dependent force acts on time scales much longer than the mode period or the dipole dynamics, determining the true stability of the bound state. We show that for two atoms, the stochastic heating due to spontaneous emission always exceeds the bounding effect, so pairs of cold atoms cannot be truly stable without an extra cooling mechanism.

References in corpus (11)

• Quantum phase transition from a superfluid to a Mott insulator in a gas of ultracold atoms
• Cold atoms in cavity-generated dynamical optical potentials
• Absence of Anderson localization of light in a random ensemble of point scatterers
• Photonic Clusters
• Light scattering from dense cold atomic media
• Modification of radiation pressure due to cooperative scattering of light
• Non-Hermitian Euclidean random matrix theory
• Eigenvalue distributions of large Euclidean random matrices for waves in random media
• Finite-size scaling analysis of localization transition for scalar waves in a 3D ensemble of resonant point scatterers
• Population of collective modes in light scattering by many atoms
• Optical binding with cold atoms

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Subradiance in dilute atomic ensembles: Role of pairs and multiple scattering
• Photon-mediated dipole-dipole interactions as a resource for quantum science and technology in cold atoms
• Enhanced dark-state sideband cooling in trapped atoms via photon-mediated dipole-dipole interactions
• Chiral-coupling-assisted refrigeration in trapped ions
• Cooperative Cooling in a 1D Chain of Optically Bound Cold Atoms