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Observation of collective bistability in an ultracold cloud of strongly driven strontium atoms interacting with a ring cavity

Yajaira Dalila Rivero Jerez

Published Dec 14, 2022• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

We report on our progress in the construction of a machine capable of cooling Strontium atoms to ultra-cold temperatures, to interact collectively with the modes of a ring cavity.We present the first observation of a novel manifestation of saturation-induced optical bistability in a resonantly pumped optical ring cavity, interacting with a narrow atomic transition cloud.The bistability emerges, above a critical pump rate, as an additional peak in the cavity's normal-mode spectra near the atomic resonance.The new regime addressed for our machine takes advantage of the narrow atomic transition enabling the observation of bistability in a strong resonant regime where the atoms couple collectively to the cavity.

DOI
10.11606/t.76.2022.tde-28042023-145501

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We report on our progress in the construction of a machine capable of cooling Strontium atoms to ultra-cold temperatures, to interact collectively with the modes of a ring cavity.We present the first observation of a novel manifestation of saturation-induced optical bistability in a resonantly pumped optical ring cavity, interacting with a narrow atomic transition cloud.The bistability emerges, above a critical pump rate, as an additional peak in the cavity's normal-mode spectra near the atomic resonance.The new regime addressed for our machine takes advantage of the narrow atomic transition enabling the observation of bistability in a strong resonant regime where the atoms couple collectively to the cavity.
We report on our progress in the construction of a machine capable of cooling Strontium atoms to ultra-cold temperatures, to interact collectively with the modes of a ring cavity. We present the first observation of a novel manifestation of saturation-induced optical bistability in a resonantly pumped optical ring cavity, interacting with a narrow atomic transition cloud. The bistability emerges, above a critical pump rate, as an additional peak in the cavitys normal-mode spectra near the atomic resonance. The new regime addressed for our machine takes advantage of the narrow atomic transition enabling the observation of bistability in a strong resonant regime where the atoms couple collectively to the cavity.
We report on the observation of a novel manifestation of saturation-induced optical bistability in a resonantly pumped optical ring cavity interacting strongly with a cloud of atoms via a narrow atomic transition. The bistability emerges, above a critical pump rate, as an additional peak in the cavity's normal mode spectrum close to atomic resonance. This third transmission peak is usually suppressed due to strong resonant absorption, but in our experiment it is visible because of the linewidth of the atomic transition being much smaller than that of the cavity, which sets the experiment into the bad-cavity regime. Relying on complete saturation of the transition, this bistability has a quantum origin and cannot be mimicked by a classical material presenting a nonlinear refraction index. The appearance of the central peak in addition to the normal modes is predicted by a semi-classical model derived from the Tavis-Cummings Hamiltonian from which we derive a bistability phase diagram that connects our observations with former work on optical bistability in the good cavity regime. The phase diagram reveals several so far unexplored bistable phases.
Abstract We report on the observation of a novel manifestation of saturation-induced optical bistability in a resonantly pumped optical ring cavity interacting strongly with a cloud of atoms via a narrow atomic transition. The bistability emerges, above a critical pump rate, as an additional peak in the cavity’s normal mode spectrum close to atomic resonance. This third transmission peak is usually suppressed due to strong resonant absorption, but in our experiment it is visible because of the linewidth of the atomic transition being much smaller than that of the cavity, which sets the experiment into the bad-cavity regime. Relying on complete saturation of the transition, this bistability has a quantum origin and cannot be mimicked by a classical material presenting a nonlinear refraction index. The appearance of the central peak in addition to the normal modes is predicted by a semi-classical model derived from the Tavis–Cummings Hamiltonian from which we derive a bistability phase diagram that connects our observations with former work on optical bistability in the good cavity regime. The phase diagram reveals several so far unexplored bistable phases.
We experimentally study the interaction between a cold-atom cloud and many longitudinal modes of a high-quality Fabry-Perot cavity, by measuring signatures of collective light shifts in the cavity transmission spectrum of an optical frequency comb probe. Using a resonator coupled to more than 10 5 intracavity atoms, we detect significant shifts of ∼ 100 cavity modes simultaneously, which is a direct manifestation of physics beyond the hitherto explored regime of cavity-cold atom interaction with only single or few longitudinal modes at a time. For the cavity mode closest to the atomic resonance, we demonstrate a bistability in the transmission spectrum, arising due to a combined coupling of the cloud to an external pump laser and a cavity mode probed by the optical frequency comb. These results provide a first step toward deeper exploration of multifrequency cavity quantum electrodynamics, where ultrashort pulsed sources could be used for optical manipulation, cooling, and entanglement of cold atoms in a resonator.
We experimentally demonstrate an optical bistability between two hyperfine ground states of trapped, cold atoms, using a single mode of an optical resonator in the collective strong coupling regime. Whereas in the familiar case, the bistable region is created through atomic saturation, we report an effect between states of high quantum purity, which is essential for future information storage. The source of nonlinearity is a cavity-assisted pumping between ground states of the atoms and the stability depends on the intensity of two driving lasers. We interpret the phenomenon in terms of the recent paradigm of first-order, driven-dissipative phase transitions, where the transmitted and driving fields are understood as the order and control parameters, respectively. A semiclassical mean-field theory is invoked to describe the nontrivial two-dimensional phase diagram arising from the competition of the two drive. The saturation-induced bistability is recovered for infinite drive in one of the controls. The order of the transition is confirmed experimentally by hysteresis in the order parameter when either of the two control parameters is swept repeatedly across the bistability region.
We demonstrate continuous loading and strong collective coupling of atoms to a high finesse ring cavity. A series of spatially separated laser cooling stages delivers a continuous flux of 2.1(3)×10^{7} ^{88}Sr atoms/s into an intracavity magic wavelength lattice where the atoms are deterministically transported inside the ring cavity. We observe a continuous atom-cavity vacuum Rabi splitting, demonstrating the first steady-state strong collective coupling on a narrow linewidth atomic transition. This Letter opens the path to future continuous cold atom devices, such as a continuous wave superradiant laser with millihertz linewidth and low vibration sensitivity, enabling searches for new physics and technologies.