Continuous cavity-QED with an atomic beam

Abstract

Atoms coupled to cavities provide an exciting playground for the study of fundamental interactions of atoms mediated through a common channel. Many of the applications of cavity-QED and cold-atom experiments more broadly, suffer from limitations caused by the transient nature of an atomic loading cycle. The development of continuous operation schemes is necessary to push these systems to the next level of performance. Here we present a machine designed to produce a continuous flux of collimated atoms that traverse an optical cavity. The atom-light interaction is enhanced by a fast-decaying cavity optimal for studying phenomena where atomic properties dominate. We demonstrate the transition to a collective strong coupling regime heralded by a normal-mode splitting. We observe a second phase with a binary normal-mode splitting born from an offset in the mean velocity of the atoms. Inverting the atomic ensemble in the collective strong coupling regime, we measure continuous optical gain. This work sets the stage for studying threshold conditions for continuous collective phenomena, such as continuous superradiant lasing.

References in corpus (6)

• Systematic evaluation of an atomic clock at 2e-18 total uncertainty
• Continuous operation of large-scale atom arrays in optical lattices
• A compact and efficient strontium oven for laser-cooling experiments
• Effusive Atomic Oven Nozzle Design Using an Aligned Microcapillary Array
• Superradiant emission of a thermal atomic beam into an optical cavity
• Quantum resonant optical bistability with a narrow atomic transition: bistability phase diagram in the bad cavity regime

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Nonreciprocal interactions induce frequency shifts in superradiant lasers
• Fully Collective Superradiant Lasing with Vanishing Sensitivity to Cavity Length Vibrations
• Ramsey-Borde atom interferometry with a thermal strontium beam for a compact optical clock
• Boosting Work Extraction in Quantum Batteries via Continuous Environment Monitoring