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Bose Condensation of Photons Thermalized via Laser Cooling of Atoms

Published

Author(s)

Chiao Wang, Michael Gullans, James V. Porto, William D. Phillips, Jacob Taylor

Abstract

A Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is a quantum phase of matter achieved at low temperatures.Photons, one of the most prominent species of bosons, do not typically condense due to the lackof a particle number-conservation. We recently described a photon thermalization mechanismwhich gives rise to a grand canonical ensemble of light with effective photon number conser-vation between a subsystem and a particle reservoir. This mechanism occurs during Dopplerlaser cooling of atoms where the atoms serve as a temperature reservoir while the cooling laserphotons serve as a particle reservoir. Here we address the question of the possibility of a BECof photons in this laser cooling photon thermalization scenario and theoretically demonstratethat a Bose condensation of photons can be realized by cooling an ensemble of two-level atoms(realizable with alkaline earth atoms) inside a Fabry- Perot cavity.
Citation
Optica

Citation

Wang, C. , Gullans, M. , Porto, J. , Phillips, W. and Taylor, J. (2018), Bose Condensation of Photons Thermalized via Laser Cooling of Atoms, Optica (Accessed April 25, 2024)
Created August 30, 2018, Updated October 12, 2021