Related papers: Optical pattern formation in self-focusing and sel…
We study a pattern forming instability in a laser driven optically thick cloud of cold two-level atoms with a planar feedback mirror. A theoretical model is developed, enabling a full analysis of transverse patterns in a medium with…
The study of transverse optical pattern formation has been studied extensively in nonlinear optics, with a recent experimental interest in studying the phenomenon using cold atoms, which can undergo real-space self-organization. Here, we…
Light scattering in dense media is a fundamental problem of many-body physics, which is also relevant for the development of optical devices. In this work we investigate experimentally light propagation in a dense sample of randomly…
We explore various models for the pattern forming instability in a laser-driven cloud of cold two-level atoms with a plane feedback mirror. Focus is on the combined treatment of nonlinear propagation in a diffractively thick medium and the…
We present an experimental and theoretical investigation of spontaneous pattern formation in the transverse section of a single retro-reflected laser beam passing through a cloud of cold Rubidium atoms. In contrast to previously…
We report the observation of the optomechanical strain applied to thermal and to quantum degenerate $^{87}\text{Rb}$ atomic clouds when illuminated by an intense, far detuned homogenous laser beam. In this regime the atomic cloud acts as a…
We have demonstrated an atom-optical lens, with the advantage of a small scale and flexible adjustment of the parameters, realized by a far red-detuned Gaussian laser beam perpendicular to the propagation direction of the cold atomic cloud.…
Transverse pattern formation in an optical cavity containing a cloud of cold two-level atoms is discussed. We show that density modulation becomes the dominant mechanism as the atomic temperature is reduced. Indeed, for low but achievable…
We show that, for a near-resonant propagating beam, a large cloud of cold 87Rb atoms acts as a saturable Kerr medium and produces self-trapping of light. By side fluorescence imaging we monitor the transverse size of the beam and, depending…
Spontaneous pattern formation from a uniform state is a widely studied nonlinear optical phenomenon that shares similarities with non-equilibrium pattern formation in other scientific domains. Here we show how a single layer of atoms in an…
Optomechanical pattern forming instabilities in a cloud of cold atoms lead to self-organized spatial structures of light and atoms. Here, we consider the optomechanical self-structuring of a cold atomic cloud in the presence of a phase…
Superradiance has been extensively studied in the 1970s and 1980s in the regime of superfluores-cence, where a large number of atoms are initially excited. Cooperative scattering in the linear-optics regime, or "single-photon superradiance"…
The optical properties of randomly positioned, resonant scatterers is a fundamentally difficult problem to address across a wide range of densities and geometries. We investigate it experimentally using a dense cloud of rubidium atoms…
We measure the coherent scattering of light by a cloud of laser-cooled atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. By interfering a laser beam tuned near an atomic resonance with the field scattered by the atoms we observe a…
It is shown that homogeneous line-broadening in a diffuse cold atom cloud is proportional to the resonant optical depth of the cloud. Further, it is demonstrated how the strong directionality of the coherent interactions causes the cloud's…
Electron scattering on a thin layer where the potential depends self-consistently on the wave function has been studied. When the amplitude of the incident wave exceeds a certain threshold, a soliton-shaped brightening (darkening) appears…
We theoretically study the propagation of light through a cold atomic medium, where the effects of motion, laser intensity, atomic density, and polarization can all modify the properties of the scattered light. We present two different…
We reveal the relevance between the nonlocality and the focusing/defocusing states in nonlocally nonlinear media, and predict a novel phenomenon that the self-focusing/self-defocusing property of the optical beam in the nonlocally nonlinear…
When a cold atomic gas is illuminated by a quasi-resonant laser beam, light-induced dipole-dipole correlations make the scattering of light a cooperative process. Once a fluid description is adopted for the atoms, many scattering properties…
We study the emergence of a collective optical response of a cold and dense $^{87}$Rb atomic cloud to a near-resonant low-intensity light when the atom number is gradually increased. Experimental observations are compared with microscopic…