Angular momentum exchange between coherent light and matter fields

TL;DR

This paper presents 3D simulations demonstrating how laser beams with orbital angular momentum can transfer quantized angular momentum to Bose-Einstein condensates via coherent Bragg scattering, analyzing efficiency and vortex states.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation framework for angular momentum transfer in BECs using Laguerre-Gaussian beams, linking theory with recent experimental results.

Findings

Quantized angular momentum transfer observed in simulations

Efficiency of transfer depends on optical lattice parameters

Output vortex states match experimental observations

Abstract

Full, three dimensional, time-dependent simulations are presented demonstrating the quantized transfer of angular momentum to a Bose-Einstein condensate from a laser carrying orbital angular momentum in a Laguerre-Gaussian mode. The process is described in terms of coherent Bragg scattering of atoms from a chiral optical lattice. The transfer efficiency and the angular momentum content of the output coupled vortex state are analyzed and compared with a recent experiment.