Related papers: Light under a matter field microscope
The refraction of light by dispersion-free dielectric media can be modeled using well-localized macroscopic wave packets, enabling a description in terms of pseudo-particles. This approach is often used in thought experiments to illustrate…
For over a century diffraction theory has been thought to limit the resolution of focusing and imaging in the optical domain. The size of the smallest spot achievable is inversely proportional to the range of spatial wavevectors available.…
Decoherence describes the tendency of quantum sub-systems to dynamically lose their quantum character. This happens when the quantum sub-system of interest interacts and becomes entangled with an environment that is traced out. For ordinary…
Matter-wave interferometry of ultra-cold atoms with attractive interactions is studied at the full many-body level. First, we study how a coherent light-pulse applied to an initially-condensed solitonic system splits it into two…
We propose detecting dark photons (DP), a major candidate for wave dark matter, through polarimetry. The DP can modify Maxwell's equations due to its kinetic mixing with regular photons, inducing an oscillating component in the…
The Schwinger limit could be approached by focusing to its diffraction limit the light reflected by a plasma mirror irradiated by a multi-petawatt laser. We explore numerically the interaction between such intense light and matter. We find…
Intense light-matter interaction largely relies on the use of high-power light sources, creating fields comparable to, or even stronger than, the field keeping the electrons bound in atoms. Under such conditions, the interaction induces…
We develop a computational framework for identifying bounds to light-matter interactions, originating from polarization-current-based formulations of local conservation laws embedded in Maxwell's equations. We propose an iterative method…
Dark matter remains one of the most profound and unresolved mysteries in modern physics. To unravel its nature, numerous haloscope experiments have been implemented across various mass ranges. However, very few haloscope experiments…
Systems with competing attractive and repulsive interactions have a tendency to condense into droplets. This is the case for water in a sink, liquid helium and dipolar atomic gases. Here, we consider a photon fluid which is formed in the…
Well known scaling laws among the structural properties of the dark and the luminous matter in disc systems are too complex to be arisen by two inert components that just share the same gravitational field. This brings us to critically…
We study the possibility of creating spatial patterns having subwavelength size by using the so-called dark states formed by the interaction between atoms and optical fields. These optical fields have a specified spatial distribution. Our…
We outline a fundamentally quantum description of bosonic dark matter (DM) from which the conventional classical-wave picture emerges in the limit $m \ll 10~\textrm{eV}$. As appropriate for a quantum system, we start from the density matrix…
Exploring dark matter via observations of extreme astrophysical environments -- defined here as heavy compact objects such as white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes, as well as supernovae and compact object merger events -- has been a…
The optics of correlated disordered media is a fascinating research topic emerging at the interface between the physics of waves in complex media and nanophotonics. Inspired by photonic structures in nature and enabled by advances in…
Understanding the momentum of light when propagating through optical media is not only fundamental for studies as varied as classical electrodynamics and polaritonics in condensed matter physics, but also for important applications such as…
Dark Matter (DM) is an elusive form of matter which has been postulated to explain astronomical observations through its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies, gravitational lensing of light around these, and through its imprint on…
The resolution of optical imaging devices is ultimately limited by the diffraction of light. To circumvent this limit, modern super-resolution microscopy techniques employ active interaction with the object by exploiting its optical…
Matter-wave interferometry with molecules is intriguing both because it demonstrates a fundamental quantum phenomenon and because it opens avenues to quantum-enhanced measurements in physical chemistry. One great challenge in such…
Maxwell matter waves emerge from a perspective, complementary to de Broglie's, that matter is fundamentally a wave phenomenon whose particle aspects are revealed by quantum mechanics. Their quantum mechanical description is derived through…