Abstract

We predict the emergence of a roton minimum in the dispersion relation of elementary excitations in cold atomic gases in the presence of diffusive light. In large magneto-optical traps, multiple scattering of light is responsible for the collective behavior of the system, which is associated to an effective Coulomb-like interaction between the atoms. In optically thick clouds, the rescattered light undergoes diffusive propagation, which is responsible for a stochastic short-range force acting on the atoms. We show that the dynamical competition between these two forces is by the appearance of a roton minimum in the dispersion relation. Making use of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, we show that the roton minimum is related to classical long-range order in the system.

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