Spontaneous optomechanical pattern formation in cold atoms

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Tesio, Enrico and Robb, Gordon and Ackemann, Thorsten and Firth, William and Oppo, Gian-Luca (2012) Spontaneous optomechanical pattern formation in cold atoms. Physical Review A, 86 (3). 031801(R). ISSN 1050-2947 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.86.031801)

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Abstract

Transverse pattern formation in an optical cavity containing a cloud of cold two-level atoms is discussed. We show that density modulation becomes the dominant mechanism as the atomic temperature is reduced. Indeed, for low but easily achievable temperatures the internal degrees of freedom of the atoms can be neglected, and the system is well described by treating them as linear dielectric particles. A linear stability analysis predicts the instability threshold and the spatial scale of the emergent pattern. Numerical simulations in two transverse dimensions confirm the instability and predict the spontaneous formation of honeycomb and hexagonal density structures, respectively, for the blue and red detuned cases.

ORCID iDs

Tesio, Enrico, Robb, Gordon ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3004-5926, Ackemann, Thorsten ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2727-7395, Firth, William and Oppo, Gian-Luca ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5376-4309;
  • Item type:Article
    ID code:41378
    Dates:
    Date
    Event
    10 September 2012
    Published
    Subjects:Science > Physics
    Department:Faculty of Science > Physics
    Depositing user: Pure Administrator
    Date deposited:11 Oct 2012 13:59
    Last modified:20 Dec 2024 01:19
    Related URLs:
    URI:https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/41378
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