Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary-light polaritons

TL;DR

This paper proposes a mechanism for Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary dark-state polaritons formed in light-atom interactions, potentially enabling high-temperature condensation observable through emitted light.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to achieve Bose-Einstein condensation of polaritons with long lifetimes and high critical temperatures using stationary light in a 3D setup.

Findings

Polaritons can thermalize via elastic collisions mediated by Kerr nonlinearity.

Condensation can be observed by converting stationary polaritons into propagating ones.

Critical temperature for polariton BEC can be much higher than atomic BEC.

Abstract

We propose and analyze a mechanism for Bose-Einstein condensation of stationary dark-state polaritons. Dark-state polaritons (DSPs) are formed in the interaction of light with laser-driven 3-level Lambda-type atoms and are the basis of phenomena such as electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), ultra-slow and stored light. They have long intrinsic lifetimes and in a stationary set-up with two counterpropagating control fields of equal intensity have a 3D quadratic dispersion profile with variable effective mass. Since DSPs are bosons they can undergo a Bose-Einstein condensation at a critical temperature which can be many orders of magnitude larger than that of atoms. We show that thermalization of polaritons can occur via elastic collisions mediated by a resonantly enhanced optical Kerr nonlinearity on a time scale short compared to the decay time. Finally condensation can be observed by turning stationary into propagating polaritons and monitoring the emitted light.