Abstract
Collective atomic recoil lasing (CARL) is a process during which an ensemble of cold atoms, driven by a far-detuned laser beam, spontaneously organize themselves in periodic structures on the scale of the optical wavelength. The principle was envisaged by R. Bonifacio in 1994 and, ten years later, observed in a series of experiments in Tübingen by C. Zimmermann and colleagues. Here, we review the basic model of CARL in the classical and in the quantum regime.
Highlights
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The collective atomic recoil laser (CARL) mechanism has its roots in the free electron laser (FEL), which was originally conceived by Madey [4] in its low-gain regime and successively by Bonifacio [5,6,7] in the high-gain, single-pass amplifier configuration, which is the basis for current X-ray FELs, e.g., the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) [8]
CARL represents an early example of a phenomenon which involves the mechanical effects of light during its interaction with atoms and the backaction of the resulting atomic centre-of-mass motion on the optical field
Summary
The tunable laser concept termed as the collective atomic recoil laser (CARL) was originally proposed in 1994 by Bonifacio and colleagues [1,2,3]. This model was used to study collective light scattering from BECs in different configurations: variation of the angle of incidence of optical field, extending the usual 1D model to a bidimensional 2D description [34]; studying quantum fluctuations and atom-photon entanglement [35]; propagation effects of short pulses [36]; accelerated CARL superradiance [37] and subradiance [38] using a two-frequency pump in an optical cavity This previous model was used to compare superradiant Rayleigh scattering (SRyS) produced by a BEC in free space [9] with the recoil lasing effect observed using a BEC enclosed in a high-finesse cavity [39]. The Tubingen group have carried out several other experiments related to CARL including investigation of the stability diagram of a BEC in an optical ring resonator and its connection with the Dicke phase transition [41], a similar investigation but involving thermal, cold atoms rather than BEC [42], observation of subradiant momentum states [43] and observation of supersolid properties [44]
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