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arXiv:cond-mat/0008067 · Physical Review A

Enhancement and suppression of spontaneous emission and light scattering by quantum degeneracy

Axel Görlitz, A. P. Chikkatur, Wolfgang Ketterle

Published Mar 15, 2001• 44 citations
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Abstract

Quantum degeneracy modifies light scattering and spontaneous emission. For fermions, Pauli blocking leads to a suppression of both processes. In contrast, in a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate, we find spontaneous emission to be enhanced, while light scattering is suppressed. This difference is attributed to many-body effects and quantum interference in a Bose-Einstein condensate.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.63.041601

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Quantum degeneracy modifies light scattering and spontaneous emission. For fermions, Pauli blocking leads to a suppression of both processes. In contrast, in a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate, we find spontaneous emission to be enhanced, while light scattering is suppressed. This difference is attributed to many-body effects and quantum interference in a Bose-Einstein condensate.
Pauli blocking of spontaneous emission is responsible for the stability of atoms. Electrons cannot decay to lower-lying internal states that are already occupied. Pauli blocking also occurs when free atoms scatter light elastically (Rayleigh scattering) and the final external momentum states are already populated. This was predicted more than 30 years ago but is challenging to realize experimentally. Here, we report on Pauli blocking of light scattering in a dense quantum-degenerate Fermi gas of ultracold lithium atoms. When the Fermi momentum is larger than the photon recoil, most final momentum states are within the Fermi surface. At low temperature, we find that light scattered even at large angles is suppressed by 37% compared with higher temperatures, where atoms scatter at the single-atom Rayleigh scattering rate.
Light scattering from a neutral Fermi gas can be suppressed by occupation of the final states accessible to a recoiling atom. A related effect, Pauli blocking of spontaneous emission by a single excited-state atom, has been predicted to be dramatic at low temperature when the Fermi energy EF exceeds the recoil energy ER. However suppression of light scattering from a large ground-state ensemble is diminished by scattering events near unoccupied states. We analyze two possible methods of enhancement: using a focused light beam to excite only the high-density region of the cloud, and Raman scattering between imbalanced internal states. We find that focusing can enhance suppression by 14 % of the unblocked scattering rate, and that Raman scattering can yield a full suppression at low temperature for EF> 4ER, even in the inhomogeneous gas. ‡ Present address: Lyman Laboratories, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138, USAEnhanced Pauli blocking of light scattering in a trapped Fermi gas 2 1.
Pauli blocking of spontaneous emission by a single excited-state atom has been predicted to be dramatic at low temperature when the Fermi energy E F exceeds the recoil energy E R . The photon scattering rate of a ground-state Fermi gas can also be suppressed by occupation of the final states accessible to a recoiling atom; however, suppression is diminished by scattering events near the Fermi edge. We analyse two new approaches to improve the visibility of Pauli blocking in a trapped Fermi gas. Focusing the incident light to excite preferentially the high-density region of the cloud can increase the blocking signature by 14%, and is most effective at intermediate temperature. Spontaneous Raman scattering between imbalanced internal states can be strongly suppressed at low temperature, and is completely blocked for a final state E F > 4 E R in the high imbalance limit.
We show that the phase difference of two overlapping ground-state Bose-Einstein condensates can affect the optical spontaneous emission rate of excited atoms. Depending on the phase difference the atom-stimulated spontaneous emission rate can vary between zero and the rate corresponding to all the ground-state atoms in a single condensate. Besides giving control over spontaneous emission this provides an optical method for detecting the condensate phase difference. It differs from previous methods in that no light fields are applied. Instead the light is spontaneously emitted when excited atoms make a transition into either condensate.