The Bose-Einstein Condensation Phase transition for photons

Jan Klaers, Julian Schmitt, Frank Vewinger +1 more

Bose-Einstein condensation, the macroscopic ground state occupation of a system of bosonic particles below a critical temperature, has been observed in cold atomic gases and solid-state physics quasiparticles. In contrast, photons do not show this phase transition usually, because in Planck's blackbody radiation the particle number is not conserved and at low temperature the photons disappear in the walls of the system. Here we report on the realization of a photon Bose-Einstein condensate in a dye-filled optical microcavity, which acts as a "white-wall" photon box. The cavity mirrors provide a trapping potential and a non-vanishing effective photon mass, making the system formally equivalent to a two-dimensional gas of trapped massive bosons. Thermalization of the photon gas is reached in a number conserving way by multiple scattering off the dye molecules. Signatures for a BEC upon increased photon density are: a spectral distribution that shows Bose-Einstein distributed photon energies with a macroscopically populated peak on top of a broad thermal wing, the observed threshold of the phase transition showing the predicted absolute value and scaling with resonator geometry, and condensation appearing at the trap centre even for a spatially displaced pump spot.

Allard P. Mosk

Zhang, Fan, Yin, Lan

Recent repoet on the formation of two-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) of spinning g-wave molecules is surprise. Here we study quantum phase transition in the quasi-2D atomic Bose gas with a g-wave Feshbach resonance, and show that there are two phase transitions in this system: from a phase with only a atomic Bose-Einstein condensate to a phase with coexistence of atomic and molecular condensation and from the coexistence phase to a phase with only a molecular Bose-Einstein condensate. We show that the g-wave resonance Feshbach has two features in the phase transitions, a phase with only a atomic Bose-Einstein condensate is no longer forbidden and resonance effects appear only at levels beyond the mean-field. We determine the T=0 beyond mean-field phase diagram of the gas as a function of magnetic field and molecular condensation density. We also detemine the ratio of atomic to molecular condensation in the coexistence phase, which can be tested in experiments.

Allard P. Mosk

Su Guo

The phase transition characteristics of Bose Einstein condensation are studied. It is shown that Bose Einstein condensation is a second order phase transition for a Bose system with weak repulsive interaction.

Prasanta Kumar Panigrahi, Anirban Dey, V. S. Ashoka