Slow light in degenerate Fermi gases

TL;DR

This paper explores how slow light with orbital angular momentum interacts with a degenerate Fermi gas, creating effective magnetic fields and revealing phenomena like the de Haas-van Alphen effect in neutral fermions.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic theory showing how slow light can induce effective magnetic fields in neutral Fermi gases, enabling the observation of magnetic phenomena.

Findings

Slow light can generate effective magnetic fields in neutral fermions.

The de Haas-van Alphen effect can be observed in a neutral Fermi gas.

The theory demonstrates a controllable way to simulate magnetic phenomena in cold atom systems.

Abstract

We investigate the effect of slow light propagating in a degenerate atomic Fermi gas. In particular we use slow light with an orbital angular momentum. We present a microscopic theory for the interplay between light and matter and show how the slow light can provide an effective magnetic field acting on the electrically neutral fermions, a direct analogy of the free electron gas in an uniform magnetic field. As an example we illustrate how the corresponding de Haas-van Alphen effect can be seen in a neutral gas of fermions.