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Physical Review Letters

Dynamical Instability of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in an Optical Ring Resonator

Dag Schmidt, H. Tomczyk, Sebastian Slama, Claus Zimmermann

Published Mar 18, 2014• 61 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We experimentally investigate the dynamical instability of a Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical ring resonator for various cavity detuning and pump powers. The resulting stability diagram is asymmetric with respect to the cavity detuning and can be described by the coupling of two atomic modes with one optical mode. We compare the experimental data to a numerical simulation and to an analytic expression of the phase boundary. For positive and negative pump cavity detuning, different coupling mechanisms are identified explaining the asymmetry of the stability diagram. We present a physical interpretation and discuss the connection to the Dicke quantum phase transition.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.112.115302

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Abstract The optical bistability (OB) in a two-mode optomechanical system with a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) is studied. By investigating the behavior of steady state solutions, we show that how OB develops in the system for a certain range of cavity-pump detunings and pump amplitudes. We then investigate the effects of the decay rate of the cavity photons and coupling strength between the cavity and the BEC as well as the pump-atom detuning on the optical behaviour of the system. We find that one can control the OB threshold and width of the bistability curve via adjusting properly the coupling strength and the detuning. By applying Routh–Hurwitz criterion, we then derive stability conditions for different branches of the OB curve. Moreover, by introducing an effective potential for the system, a simple physical interpretation is obtained.
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