Subrecoil cavity cooling towards degeneracy: A numerical study

TL;DR

This paper numerically investigates cavity cooling of dilute gases towards quantum degeneracy, highlighting the effects of cavity geometry, quantum statistics, and tailored laser sequences on cooling efficiency and quantum correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed numerical analysis of cavity cooling limits, emphasizing the impact of cavity geometry and quantum statistics on cooling performance and correlations.

Findings

Ring cavities improve cooling efficiency compared to standing-wave geometries.

Quantum statistical effects influence the nature of particle correlations during cooling.

Long-range photon-mediated interactions promote pairing in bosons and anti-correlations in fermions.

Abstract

We present a detailed numerical analysis of the temperature limit and timescale of cavity cooling of a dilute gas in the quantum regime for particles and light. For a cavity with a linewidth smaller than the recoil frequency efficient cooling towards quantum degeneracy is facilitated by applying a tailored sequence of laser pulses transferring the particles towards lower momenta. Two-particle Monte Carlo wave function simulations reveal strongly improved cooling properties for a ring versus a standing-wave geometry. Distinct quantum correlations and cooling limits for bosons and fermions demonstrate quantum statistical effects. In particular, in ring cavities the photon-mediated long-range interaction favours momentum-space pairing of bosons, while fermion pairs exhibit anti-correlated or uncorrelated momenta. The results are consistent with recent experiments and give encouraging prospects to achieve sufficient conditions for the condensation of a wide class of polarisable particles via cavity cooling.