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Physical Review Letters

Superradiant Light Scattering from Thermal Atomic Vapors

Yutaka Yoshikawa, Yoshio Torii, Takahiro Kuga

Published Mar 4, 2005• 59 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Superradiant light scattering from noncondensed, thermal atomic vapors was experimentally studied. We found that superradiant gain is independent of quantum degeneracy and determined only by the shape of the atomic cloud and a contained number of atoms. Superradiant pump-probe spectroscopy was also developed to measure the atomic correlation function, revealing the Doppler-width-limited coherence time of the thermal gas and sudden buildup of long-lived coherence below the transition temperature.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.94.083602

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Superradiant light scattering from noncondensed, thermal atomic vapors was experimentally studied. We found that superradiant gain is independent of quantum degeneracy and determined only by the shape of the atomic cloud and a contained number of atoms. Superradiant pump-probe spectroscopy was also developed to measure the atomic correlation function, revealing the Doppler-width-limited coherence time of the thermal gas and sudden buildup of long-lived coherence below the transition temperature.
Collective interaction of light with an atomic gas can give rise to superradiant instabilities. We experimentally study the sudden build-up of a reverse light field in a laser-driven high-finesse ring cavity filled with ultracold thermal or condensed atoms. While superradiant Rayleigh scattering from atomic clouds is normally only observed at very low temperatures (i.e. well below 1μ1 μ1μK), the presence of the ring cavity enhances cooperativity and allows for superradiance with thermal clouds as hot as several 10μ10 μ10μK. A characterization of the superradiance at various temperatures and cooperativity parameters allows us to link it to the collective atomic recoil laser.
Collective interaction of light with an atomic gas can give rise to superradiant instabilities. We experimentally study the sudden buildup of a reverse light field in a laser-driven high-finesse ring cavity filled with ultracold thermal or Bose-Einstein condensed atoms. While superradiant Rayleigh scattering from atomic clouds is normally observed only at very low temperatures (i.e., well below 1 microK), the presence of the ring cavity enhances cooperativity and allows for superradiance with thermal clouds as hot as several 10 microK. A characterization of the superradiance at various temperatures and cooperativity parameters allows us to link it to the collective atomic recoil laser.
We propose an alternative formulation for atomic side mode dynamics from superradiant light scattering of trapped atoms. A detailed analysis of the recently observed superradiant light scattering from trapped Bose gases [S. Inouye et al., Science 285, 571 (1999)] is presented. We find that scattered light intensity can exhibit both oscillatory and exponential growth behaviors depending on densities, pump pulse characteristics, temperatures, and geometric shapes of trapped gas samples. The total photon scattering rate as well as the accompanying matter wave amplification depend explicitly on atom number fluctuations in the condensate. Our formulation allows for natural and transparent interpretations of subtle features in the experimental data, and provides numerical simulations in good agreement with most important aspects of the experimental observations.
The use of temporal correlations in scattered photons to probe the microscopic dynamics of ultracold quantum gases has emerged as a powerful, minimally destructive approach for in situ analysis. Here, we demonstrate that temporal coherence spectroscopy can quantitatively characterize atomic motion in a magnetic trap, despite the perturbative effects of the probing light. By measuring the first-order correlation function g (1) (τττ ) of light scattered by a 87 Rb cloud confined in a quadrupole trap, we identify radiation-pressure-induced acceleration and heating as the origin of the apparent discrepancy between coherence spectra and temperatures inferred from time-of-flight measurements. A simple dynamical model incorporating these effects restores agreement between theory and experiment, establishing coherence spectroscopy as a reliable in situ probe of velocity distributions in trapped atomic ensembles. Our results pave the way for time-resolved studies of nonequilibrium dynamics and thermalization processes in confined cold gases, complementing conventional destructive imaging techniques.
The coherence of light from independent ensembles of elementary atomic emitters plays a paramount role in diverse areas of modern optics. We demonstrate the interference of photons scattered from independent ensembles of warm atoms in atomic vapor. It relies on the feasibility of the preservation of coherence of light scattered elastically in the forward and backward directions from Doppler-broadened atomic ensembles, such that photons with chaotic photon statistics from two opposite atomic velocity groups contribute to the same detection mode. While the random phase fluctuations of the scattered light caused by a large thermal motion prevent direct observability of the interference in the detected photon rate, the stable frequency difference between photons collected from scattering off counterpropagating laser beams provides strong periodic modulation of the photon coincidence rate with the period given by the detuning of the excitation laser from the atomic resonance. The presented interferometry represents a sensitive and robust methodology for Doppler-free optical atomic and molecular spectroscopy based on photon correlation measurements on scattered light.