Retardation effects in induced atomic dipole-dipole interactions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how retardation effects significantly enhance laser-induced dipole-dipole interactions in Bose-Einstein condensates at shorter wavelengths, enabling stronger long-range interactions with lower laser intensities.

Contribution

It provides mean-field calculations showing a 30-fold increase in dipole-dipole interaction strength at shorter wavelengths due to retardation effects, incorporating dynamic polarizability.

Findings

Dipole-dipole interactions are much stronger at shorter wavelengths.

Retardation effects can enhance interactions by up to 30 times.

Long-range interactions can be induced at lower laser intensities.

Abstract

We present mean-field calculations of azimuthally averaged retarded dipole-dipole interactions in a Bose-Einstein condensate induced by a laser, at both long and short wavelengths. Our calculations demonstrate that dipole-dipole interactions become significantly stronger at shorter wavelengths, by as much as 30-fold, due to retardation effects. This enhancement, along with inclusion of the dynamic polarizability, indicate a method of inducing long-range interatomic interactions in neutral atom condensates at significantly lower intensities than previously realized.