Ground state bistability of cold atoms in a cavity

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate an optical bistability between two hyperfine atomic ground states, using a single mode of an optical resonator in the collective strong coupling regime. Whereas in the familiar case, the bistable region is created through atomic saturation, we report an effect between states of high quantum purity, which is essential for future information storage. The nonlinearity of the transitions arise from cavity-assisted pumping between ground states of cold, trapped atoms and the stability depends on the intensity of two driving lasers. We interpret the phenomenon in terms of the recent paradigm of first-order, driven-dissipative phase transitions, where the transmitted and driving fields are understood as the order and control parameters, respectively. The saturation-induced bistability is recovered for infinite drive in one of the controls. The order of the transition is confirmed experimentally by hysteresis in the order parameter when either of the two control parameters is swept repeatedly across the bistability region and the underlying phase diagram is predicted in line with semiclassical mean-field theory.

References in corpus (39)

• The Dicke Quantum Phase Transition with a Superfluid Gas in an Optical Cavity
• Measurement of conditional phase shifts for quantum logic
• Cold atoms in cavity-generated dynamical optical potentials
• Supersolid formation in a quantum gas breaking continuous translational symmetry
• The Dicke model phase transition in the quantum motion of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical cavity
• Dynamical phase transition in the open Dicke model
• Cavity QED with Quantum Gases: New Paradigms in Many-Body Physics
• Cavity QED with optically transported atoms
• Probing a dissipative phase transition via dynamical optical hysteresis
• Critical dynamical properties of a first-order dissipative phase transition
• Signatures of a dissipative phase transition in photon correlation measurements
• Observation of the photon-blockade breakdown phase transition
• Supermode-Density-Wave-Polariton Condensation
• Self-Organization Threshold Scaling for Thermal Atoms Coupled to a Cavity
• Dissipation driven quantum phase transitions and symmetry breaking
• Cavity-aided non-demolition measurements for atom counting and spin squeezing
• Collective state measurement of mesoscopic ensembles with single-atom resolution
• Lasing on a narrow transition in a cold thermal strontium ensemble
• A noise-immune cavity-assisted non-destructive detection for an optical lattice clock in the quantum regime
• Optical Bistability and Collective Behavior of Atoms trapped in a High-Q Ring Cavity
• Negative-mass instability of the spin and motion of an atomic gas driven by optical cavity backaction
• Critical slowing down in the bistable regime of circuit quantum electrodynamics
• Optical nonlinear dynamics with cold atoms in a cavity
• Cavity-QED determination of the natural linewidth of the ${}^{87}$Sr millihertz clock transition with 30$\mu$Hz resolution
• Cold atoms: A new medium for quantum optics
• Cooperative Breakdown of the Oscillator Blockade in the Dicke Model
• Optical bistability enabled control of resonant light transmission for an atom-cavity system
• Critical Theory for the Breakdown of Photon Blockade
• Directional bistability and nonreciprocal lasing with cold atoms in a ring cavity
• Geometrically asymmetric optical cavity for strong atom-photon coupling
• Collective strong coupling of cold potassium atoms in a ring cavity
• Finite-size scaling of the photon-blockade breakdown dissipative quantum phase transition
• Spin-Wave Multiplexed Atom-Cavity Electrodynamics
• Cavity-enhanced non-destructive detection of atoms for an optical lattice clock
• Real-time detection of Rydberg state dynamics of cold atoms using an optical cavity
• Collective atom-cavity coupling and non-linear dynamics with atoms with multilevel ground states
• Cavity probe for real-time detection of atom dynamics in an optical lattice
• Time-resolved observation of a dynamical phase transition of atoms in a cavity
• Collective self-trapping of atoms in a cavity

Cited by in corpus (9)

• Conventional and unconventional Dicke models: Multistabilities and nonequilibrium dynamics
• Collective atom-cavity coupling and non-linear dynamics with atoms with multilevel ground states
• Non-Gaussian dynamics of quantum fluctuations and mean-field limit in open quantum central spin systems
• Quantum resonant optical bistability with a narrow atomic transition: bistability phase diagram in the bad cavity regime
• Fluctuation-Induced Bistability of Fermionic Atoms Coupled to a Dissipative Cavity
• Loading atoms from a large magnetic trap to a small intra-cavity dipole trap
• Quantum bistability in the hyperfine ground state of atoms
• Demonstration of strong coupling of a subradiant atom array to a cavity vacuum
• Superquantization rule for multistability in driven-dissipative quantum systems