Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons versus Lasing and Hanbury Brown-Twiss Measurements with a Condensate of Light

Schmitt, Julian; Damm, Tobias; Dung, David; Vewinger, Frank; Klaers, Jan; Weitz, Martin

doi:10.1142/9789813200616_0008

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Jan Klaers's tutorials [23,24] provide an excellent introduction to the field. Schmitt et al [25] is more up to date. There are a few chapters of the book on Universal Themes of BoseEinstein Condensation [26] which are relevant to photon BEC and available open-access, most notably Ref.…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 94%

Bose-Einstein condensation of photons from the thermodynamic limit to small photon numbers

Nyman

Walker

2017

Journal of Modern Optics

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Photons can come to thermal equilibrium at room temperature by scattering multiple times from a fluorescent dye. By confining the light and dye in a microcavity, a minimum energy is set and the photons can then show Bose-Einstein condensation. We present here the physical principles underlying photon thermalization and condensation, and review the literature on the subject. We then explore the 'small' regime where very few photons are needed for condensation. We compare thermal equilibrium results to a rate-equation model of microlasers, which includes spontaneous emission into the cavity, and we note that small systems result in ambiguity in the definition of threshold. FOREWORDThis article is written in memory of Danny Segal, who was a colleague of one of us (Rob Nyman) in the Quantum Optics and Laser Science group at Imperial College for many years. The topic of this article touches on the subject of dye lasers, the stuff of nightmares for any AMO physicist of his generation, but a stronger connection to Danny is that he was very supportive of my application for the fellowship that pushed my career forward, and funded this research. One of Danny's quirks was a strong dislike of flying. As a consequence, I had the pleasure of joining him on a 24 hour, four-train journey from London to Italy to a conference. That's a lot of time for story telling and forging memories for life. Danny was one of the good guys, and I sorely miss his good humour and advice.This article presents a gentle introduction to thermalization and Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) of photons in dye-filled microcavities, followed by a review of the state of the art. We then note the similarity to microlasers, particularly when there are very few photons involved. We compare a simple non-equilibrium model for microlasers with an even simpler thermal equilibrium model for BEC and show that the models coincide for similar values of a 'smallness' parameter.

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Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 94%

Bose-Einstein condensation of photons from the thermodynamic limit to small photon numbers

Nyman

Walker

2017

Journal of Modern Optics

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“…The experiment [2] was maintained at the finite temperature T = 300 K, when the radius of the photon spot is different from the radius of BEC spot, while at T = 0 K, assuming almost all photons belong to BEC, the radii of the photon spot and BEC spot are equal. For our calculations in the framework of the Thomas−Fermi approximation at T = 0 K, we assume that the radius of the photon spot r 0 corresponds by the order of magnitude to the one, reported in the experiment [22]. The parameter of strength of photon-photon coupling A was estimated by substituting r 0 = 20 µm, and L(r = 0) = 1.7 × 10 −6 m, γ = 7.929 × 10 −13 J/m 2 , N BEC = 1.7 × 10 5 , ε = 2.045 from Ref.…”

Section: Dependence Of the Condensate Parameters On The Geometry mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the experiment, at T = 300 K BEC exists at N BEC > N c , where N c = 8.5 × 10 4 [22]. The experiments have been performed for N BEC in the range from 3 × 10 4 up to 5.5 × 10 5 [5].…”

Section: Dependence Of the Condensate Parameters On The Geometry mentioning

confidence: 99%

On Bose–Einstein condensation and superfluidity of trapped photons with coordinate-dependent mass and interactions

2017

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The condensate density profile of trapped two-dimensional gas of photons in an optical microcavity, filled by a dye solution, is analyzed taking into account a coordinate-dependent effective mass of cavity photons and photon-photon coupling parameter. The profiles for the densities of the superfluid and normal phases of trapped photons in the different regions of the system at the fixed temperature are analyzed. The radial dependencies of local mean-field phase transition temperature T 0 c (r) and local Kosterlitz-Thouless transition temperature Tc(r) for trapped microcavity photons are obtained. The coordinate dependence of cavity photon effective mass and photon-photon coupling parameter is important for the mirrors of smaller radius with the high trapping frequency, which provides BEC and superfluidity for smaller critical number of photons at the same temperature. We discuss a possibility of an experimental study of the density profiles for the normal and superfluid components in the system under consideration.

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“…The inherently grand-canonical statistics of photon BECs [16] has been studied, as well as its spatial [17] and temporal features [18][19][20][21]. A lot of work has also been done to clarify the delimitation of photon BECs from lasers [22][23][24][25][26] and thermo-optic imprinting has been used to create variable potentials for coupled photon condensates.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-equilibrium mode competition in a pumped dye-filled cavity

Vlaho,

Eckardt

2021

Preprint

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We consider a homogeneously pumped photon gas coupled to a dye medium and investigate how its steady state is effected when varying the pump power, the photon cavity lifetime and the cutoff frequency. We study how the interplay between pumping, loss, and dye-induced thermalization influences the selection of the cavity modes that acquire large occupation. Depending on the parameter regime, the latter can be related either to lasing of (typically multiple) modes or to equilibrium-like photon condensation in the ground mode. We calculate and explain the phase diagram of the system, with a particular emphasis on the role played by a mode repulsion that occurs in the regime of weak cavity loss.

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Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons versus Lasing and Hanbury Brown-Twiss Measurements with a Condensate of Light

Cited by 5 publications

References 26 publications

Bose-Einstein condensation of photons from the thermodynamic limit to small photon numbers

Bose-Einstein condensation of photons from the thermodynamic limit to small photon numbers

On Bose–Einstein condensation and superfluidity of trapped photons with coordinate-dependent mass and interactions

Non-equilibrium mode competition in a pumped dye-filled cavity

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