Free energy for a damped cold atom in SU(2) non-Abelian gauge potentials

Abstract

Our main aim in this work is to find out the exact formula of the equilibrium free energy for a cold atom subjected to a harmonic potential in the background of an artificial non-Abelian uniform magnetic field and linearly coupled to a heat bath. The heat bath consists of a collection of independent quantum harmonic oscillators, while its interaction with the cold atom is modeled in terms of bilinear coupling between the coordinate variables of the cold atom and the oscillators. The main thermodynamic properties of such a system are modified in comparison with the Abelian case. For a non-Abelian magnetic field generated from the laser methods employing degenerate dark states, we evaluate the effect of the non-Abelian dynamics on the magnetic moment of the cold atom.