The Semiclassical and Quantum Regimes of Superradiant Light Scattering from a Bose-Einstein Condensate

TL;DR

This paper models two regimes of light scattering in a Bose-Einstein condensate using a mean-field quantum CARL model, linking semiclassical and quantum behaviors to experimental observations.

Contribution

It introduces a unified one-dimensional mean-field quantum CARL model that explains both regimes of light scattering in BECs as semiclassical and quantum limits.

Findings

The model accurately describes experimental features of light scattering.

It interprets Kapiza-Dirac and superradiant Rayleigh scattering as different limits.

Optical amplification and density modulation are simultaneously explained.

Abstract

We show that many features of the recent experiments of Schneble et al. [D. Schneble, Y. Torii, M. Boyd, E.W. Streed, D.E. Pritchard and W. Ketterle, Science vol. 300, p. 475 (2003)], which demonstrate two different regimes of light scattering by a Bose-Einstein condensate, can be described using a one-dimensional mean-field quantum CARL model, where optical amplification occurs simultaneously with the production of a periodic density modulation in the atomic medium. The two regimes of light scattering observed in these experiments, originally described as ``Kapiza-Dirac scattering'' and ``Superradiant Rayleigh scattering'', can be interpreted as the semiclassical and quantum limits respectively of CARL lasing.