Photon-Induced Spin-Orbit Coupling in Ultracold Atoms inside Optical Cavity

TL;DR

This paper explores how a cavity-assisted Raman transition in ultracold atoms inside an optical cavity induces spin-orbit coupling, revealing nonlinear phenomena through mean-field and quantum analyses.

Contribution

It introduces a novel mechanism for inducing spin-orbit coupling in ultracold atoms using cavity-assisted Raman transitions, combining mean-field and quantum approaches.

Findings

Cavity-assisted Raman transition couples atomic internal states with motion.

Back-action of atoms influences cavity photon dynamics.

Nonlinear phenomena emerge from atomic-cavity interplay.

Abstract

We consider an atom inside a ring cavity, where a plane-wave cavity field together with an external coherent laser beam induces a two-photon Raman transition between two hyperfine ground states of the atom. This cavity-assisted Raman transition induces effective coupling between atom's internal degrees of freedom and its center-of-mass motion. In~the meantime, atomic dynamics exerts a back-action to cavity photons. We investigate the properties of this system by adopting a mean-field and a full quantum approach, and show that the interplay between the atomic dynamics and the cavity field gives rise to intriguing nonlinear phenomena.