Transverse laser modes in Bose-Einstein condensates
arXiv:cond-mat/0310702 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.69.053610
Abstract
We examine the Bose-Einstein-condensate (BEC) equivalent of transverse aspects of laser resonators. We model numerically repeated focussing of a 2-dimensional BEC, which could be achieved in practice by a series of far off-resonant light pulses. We show for a range of non-linear coefficients that such a series of light pulses traps the BEC. We also model a combination of repeated focussing and loss, which could be achieved with a series of light pulses, some far off-resonant, some resonant. In analogy to light repeatedly being focussed and locally absorbed by passing through a laser resonator, a small proportion (in our model up to 10%) of the BEC is shaped into Hermite-Gaussian-like modes; the remainder of the BEC is lost. This happens irrespective of the presence of a harmonic trap. We show that astigmatic focussing of the resulting Hermite-Gaussian-like modes, which can be achieved by a pair of off-resonant light pulses, results in a specific number of vortices.
High resolution figures can be obtained from the authors
References in corpus (5)
- Dark Solitons in Bose-Einstein Condensates
- Collapse and Bose-Einstein condensation in a trapped Bose-gas with negative scattering length
- Three-body recombination of ultra-cold atoms to a weakly bound level
- Optical Generation of Vortices in trapped Bose-Einstein Condensates
- Dynamics of Bose condensed gases in highly deformed traps