Photon condensation and its phase diffusion
Year: 2009
Type: preprint
Abstract: Recently, several experiments successfully achieved the strong coupling of a BEC of $ N \sim 10^{5} $ $ ^{87}Rb $ atoms to the photons inside an ultrahigh-finesse optical cavity. The strong coupling regime was also achieved with artificial atoms such as superconducting qubits inside micro-wave circuit cavity. These systems are described by the Dicke model where a single mode of photons coupled to an assembly of $ N $ atoms with the same coupling strength $ g $. In this paper, by solving the Dicke model by $ 1/ N $ expansion, we show that at the thermodynamic limit $ N = \infty $, one can achieve the Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) of the cavity photons at sufficiently strong coupling $ g $. At a finite $ N $, we identify an emergent quantum phase diffusion mode inside the BEC phase and also work out many remarkable experimental consequences of this mode such as its low frequency, photon number squeezing properties and photon statistics. The photons from the BEC phase are in a number squeezed state with much enhanced signal/noise ratio which may have wide applications in the field of high resolution, high sensitive measurement and also in quantum information processing. The effects of dissipations due to leaking photons out of the cavity are also briefly discussed. The difference with a Laser beam is stressed. Several experimental schemes to realize the BEC of the photons and detect the phase diffusion mode are proposed.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W78959983