Self-organised Limit-Cycles, Chaos and Phase-Slippage with a Superfluid inside an Optical Resonator

TL;DR

This paper investigates the complex dynamical behaviors, including limit-cycles and chaos, of a driven Bose-Einstein condensate in an optical cavity, revealing new instability mechanisms and phase-slippage phenomena unique to dissipative superfluids.

Contribution

It uncovers a novel dynamical instability leading to stable limit-cycles and chaos in a driven superfluid within an optical resonator, highlighting the role of cavity losses in stabilizing soliton-induced phase-slippage.

Findings

Discovery of self-ordered limit-cycles with large amplitude oscillations

Identification of chaos via period doubling in the system dynamics

Observation of phase-slippage through soliton nucleation in the chaotic regime

Abstract

We study dynamical phases of a driven Bose-Einstein condensate coupled to the light field of a high-Q optical cavity. For high field seeking atoms at red detuning the system is known to show a transition from a spatially homogeneous steady-state to a self-organized regular lattice exhibiting super-radiant scattering into the cavity. For blue atom pump detuning the particles are repelled from the maxima of the light-induced optical potential suppressing scattering. We show that this generates a new dynamical instability of the self-ordered phase, leading to the appearance of self-ordered stable limit-cycles characterized by large amplitude self-sustained oscillations of both the condensate density and cavity field. The limit-cycles evolve into chaotic behavior by period doubling. Large amplitude oscillations of the condensate are accompanied by phase-slippage through soliton nucleation at a rate which increases by orders of magnitude in the chaotic regime. Different from a superfluid in a closed setup, this driven dissipative superfluid is not destroyed by the proliferation of solitons since kinetic energy is removed through cavity losses.