English

Bogoliubov dispersion relation for a "photon fluid": Is this a superfluid?

Quantum Physics 2009-10-31 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

We discuss the possibility that photons, which are bosons, can form a 2D superfluid due to Bose-Einstein condensation inside a nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity filled with atoms in their ground states. A "photon fluid" forms inside the cavity as a result of multiple photon-photon collisions mediated by the atoms during a cavity ring-down time. The effective mass and chemical potential for a photon inside this fluid are nonvanishing. This implies the existence of a Bogoliubov dispersion relation for the low-lying elementary excitations of the photon fluid, and in particular, that sound waves exist for long-wavelength, low-frequency disturbances of this fluid. Possible experiments to test for the superfluidity of the photon fluid based on the Landau critical-velocity criterion will be discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9908060,
  title  = {Bogoliubov dispersion relation for a "photon fluid": Is this a superfluid?},
  author = {Raymond Y. Chiao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9908060},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

11 pages, 4 figures, Scully Festschrift paper to appear in Optics Communications

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