Many-Body Phenomena in a Bose-Einstein Condensate of Light
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Many-body phenomena in a Bose-Einstein condensate of light Cover: The cover shows an artist's impression of Bose-Einstein condensa- tion of light in a dye-filled optical microcavity. This is inspired by a similar illustration in Physics 7, 7 (2014) (Credit: APS/Alan Stonebraker) ISBN: 978-90-393-6569-4 Printed by Ipskamp Printing Many-body phenomena in a Bose-Einstein condensate of light Veeldeeltjesverschijnselen in een Bose-Einstein condensaat van licht (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof. dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op woensdag 22 juni 2016 des middags te 4.15 uur door Arie-Willem de Leeuw geboren op 9 mei 1989 te Leerdam Promotoren: Prof. dr. ir. H.T.C. Stoof Prof. dr. R.A. Duine Contents Publications 7 1 Introduction 11 1.1 Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms . 12 1.2 Driven-dissipative Bose-Einstein condensates . 17 1.3 Bose-Einstein condensation of light . 19 1.4 Outline . 22 2 Schwinger-Keldysh theory 25 2.1 Introduction . 25 2.2 Model . 27 2.3 Non-equilibrium physics . 35 2.4 Equilibrium physics . 40 2.4.1 Normal state . 40 2.4.2 Condensed state . 42 2.5 Conclusion and outlook . 45 3 First-order correlation functions 47 3.1 Introduction . 47 3.2 Phase fluctuations . 49 3.3 Correlation functions in the condensed phase . 53 3.3.1 Spatial correlations . 53 3.3.2 Temporal correlations . 56 3.4 Photons . 57 3.4.1 One-particle density matrix . 57 3.4.2 Normal state . 59 3.5 Conclusion and outlook . 61 6 CONTENTS 4 Number fluctuations 63 4.1 Introduction . 63 4.2 Probability distribution . 65 4.3 Results . 66 4.4 Comparison with experiment . 68 4.5 Photon-photon interaction . 69 4.5.1 Thermal lensing . 69 4.5.2 Dye-mediated photon-photon scattering . 72 4.6 Conclusion . 75 5 Phase diffusion 77 5.1 Introduction . 77 5.2 Quantum fluctuations . 79 5.3 Thermal fluctuations . 83 5.4 Discussion and conclusion . 86 6 Superfluid-Mott-insulator transition 87 6.1 Introduction . 87 6.2 Photonic lattice in dye-filled microcavity . 89 6.3 Mean-field theory . 92 6.3.1 Toy model . 92 6.3.2 Photon model . 97 6.4 Number fluctuations inside the Mott lobes . 99 6.4.1 Quasiparticle excitations . 103 6.4.2 Number fluctuations . 105 6.5 Conclusion and outlook . 110 7 Superfluidity 113 7.1 Introduction . 113 7.2 Semiconductor . 116 7.2.1 Interactions . 118 7.2.2 Scattering length . 121 7.2.3 Many-body effects . 123 7.3 Light in semiconductor microcavities . 126 7.4 Scissors modes . 130 7.5 Damping of scissors modes . 132 7.6 Density-density correlation function . 140 7.7 Discussion and conclusion . 142 Samenvatting 143 7 Curriculum Vitae 148 Acknowledgments 149 Bibliography 152 Publications The main Chapters of this thesis are based on the following papers: A.-W. de Leeuw, H.T.C. Stoof, and R.A. Duine, Schwinger-Keldysh • Theory for Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons in a Dye-Filled Optical Microcavity, Phys. Rev. A 88, 033829 (2013). A.-W. de Leeuw, H.T.C. Stoof, and R.A. Duine, Phase Fluctuations • and First-Order Correlation Functions of Dissipative Bose-Einstein Condensates, Phys. Rev. A 89, 053627 (2014). E.C.I. van der Wurff, A.-W. de Leeuw, R.A. Duine, and H.T.C. Stoof, • Interaction Effects on Number Fluctuations in a Bose-Einstein Con- densate of Light, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 135301 (2014). A.-W. de Leeuw, E.C.I. van der Wurff, R.A. Duine, and H.T.C. Stoof, • Phase Diffusion in a Bose-Einstein Condensate of Light, Phys. Rev. A 90, 043627 (2014). A.-W. de Leeuw, O. Onishchenko, R.A. Duine, and H.T.C. Stoof, • Effects of dissipation on the superfluid-Mott-insulator transition of photons, Phys. Rev. A 91, 033609 (2015). A.-W. de Leeuw, E.C.I. van der Wurff, R.A. Duine, D. van Oosten, • and H.T.C. Stoof, Theory for Bose-Einstein condensation of light in nano-fabricated semiconductor microcavities, submitted for publica- tion in Phys. Rev. A, arXiv:1505.01732. Chapter 1 Introduction In many cases the behavior of objects can be explained by theories within a classical framework. The most famous example is probably the motion of macroscopic masses that is described by Newton's laws. However, it turns out that the behavior of particles at the microscopic level cannot be explained within the same framework. This is a consequence of the different set of rules that must be obeyed on each scale. Namely, at the microscopic level the laws of quantum mechanics apply, which are quite different from the rules of classical mechanics. To distinguish whether quantum mechanics is important or not, we need to compare the average distance between the particles in the system of interest with the thermal de Broglie wavelength of the particles. Here, the latter is defined as s 2π~2 Λth = ; (1.1) mkBT with ~ Planck's constant, m the mass of the particle, kB Boltzmann's con- stant, and T the temperature of the collection of particles in the system. In the regime where this wavelength is smaller than the average distance between the particles, the behavior is classical and the quantum mechanical nature of the particles can be ignored. However, if the de Broglie wave- length becomes larger than the interparticle spacing, or if both quantities are comparable, the effects of the laws of quantum mechanics set in. A prominent example of a many-body phenomenon that is purely quan- tum mechanical is Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) [1,2]. Based on work of the Indian physicist Bose, Einstein concluded that a nonzero fraction of the number of particles in a gas of bosons occupies the ground state, if the de Broglie wavelength is comparable to the interparticle distance. For the macroscopic occupation of the ground state, the bosonic nature of the particle is crucial, since fermions are not allowed to occupy the 12 1. INTRODUCTION High Energy > > Low Energy Figure 1.1: Schematic picture of evaporative cooling. By reducing the height of the external potential the most energetic atoms are removed from the trap, thereby reducing the average temperature of the trapped atomic gas. same state. At first instance an experimental realization of BEC seemed unrealistic. Namely, for the most convenient bosonic gases, such as rubid- ium and sodium, the maximal densities in experiments are in the range of 1013 1015 cm 3. Therefore, these gases must be cooled to temperatures − − in the nanokelvin regime to observe BEC. 1.1 Bose-Einstein condensation of atoms The key insight for achieving these ultracold temperatures was the notion of the equivalence between the temperature of a gas and the average veloc- ity of the particles of which this gas consists. Namely, reducing the velocity of the particles is equivalent to lowering the temperature of the gas. This is the basic principle behind laser cooling. By shining a red-detuned laser in the direction opposite to the motion of a particle, the particle can absorb a photon. This reduces the velocity of the particle due to momentum con- servation. Hereafter, the photon is emitted in an arbitrary direction and therefore on average the velocity of the particle is reduced. By using this principle, temperatures of the order of 10 µK are achievable. Since this is still not low enough for achieving BEC, laser cooling is followed by evapo- rative cooling. Evaporative cooling is a process where the most energetic particles are removed from the system. By simply reducing the height of the trapping potential, the particles with the highest energy escape. This process is illustrated in Fig. 1.1. This reduces the average temperatures of the gas to the nanokelvin regime, which was sufficient for the first observa- tion of BEC in atomic vapors [3{5]. There are several experiments that can be performed to distinguish whether a Bose gas is in the Bose-Einstein condensed phase or not. The most obvious experiment is measuring the density of particles and therefrom extracting the number of particles in the ground state. Another possibility 1.1. BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION OF ATOMS 13 is performing correlation measurements and in particular investigating the one-particle density matrix n(x; x0). In the language of second quantiza- tion, it is given by n(x; x0) = ^y(x) ^(x0) ; (1.2) h i where ^y(x) and ^(x0) are the creation and annihilation operator of the atoms. In an ordinary gas or liquid, the density matrix typically decays exponentially as a function of the separation x x . On the other hand, j − 0j for a macroscopic occupation of the ground state there is an additional contribution. Since this contribution is independent of the separation, we find that in the Bose-Einstein condensed phase the density matrix does not vanish at large separations. This so-called off-diagonal long-range order is another characteristic for BEC. True off-diagonal long-range order is only present in three dimensions. In lower dimensions, interaction effects will lead to fluctuations that affect the behavior of the single-particle density matrix. This is particularly im- portant in atomic vapors, since in these systems it is possible to manipulate the degrees of freedom of the particles. By changing the configuration of the external trapping potential, the motion of the atoms in one or two directions can be frozen out.