COVARIANT FORMULATIONS OF THE LIGHT-ATOM PROBLEM
Open Access
- Author:
- Price, Craig Chandler
- Graduate Program:
- Physics
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- May 17, 2018
- Committee Members:
- Nathan D. Gemelke, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Nathan D. Gemelke, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
David S. Weiss, Committee Member
Marcos Rigol, Committee Member
Zhiwen Liu, Outside Member - Keywords:
- ultracold
light-atom
covariant
gravity
analogue
quantum field theory
Kuramoto
oscillation - Abstract:
- We explore the ramifications of the light-matter interaction of ultracold neutral atoms in a covariant, or coordinate free, approach in the quantum limit. To do so we describe the construction and initial characterization of a novel atom-optical system in which there is no obvious preferred coordinate system but is fed back upon itself to amplify coherent quantum excitations of any emergent spontaneous order of the system. We use weakly dissipative, spatially incoherent light that is modulated by amplified fluctuations of the phase profile of a Sagnac interferometer whose symmetry is broken by the action of a generalized Raman sideband cooling process. The cooling process is done in a limit of low probe intensity which effectively produces slow light and forms a platform to explore general relativistic analogues. The disordered potential landscape is populated with k-vector defects where the atomic density contracts with an inward velocity potentially faster than the speed of the slow light at that region. We show preliminary results of characterizing the system that show the effect of atomic participation in the feedback loop that cement the analogy to Kuramoto locked oscillators. In addition, we examine novel formulations of quantum field theory with the aim to capture a simultaneous quantization of covariant light - atom interaction. Instead of using field-theoretic building blocks composed of harmonic excitations, we use nonlinear, complex excitations similar to those used in the Kuramoto model. Generalizing this approach into a continuous, coordinate free version, we consider the effect of electromagnetic induced transparency (EIT) with probe fields that have a vanishingly small amplitude. The associated slow light phenomenon can be exploited as it passes through a dielectric to create a general relativistic analogue whose dynamics may capture limits of dynamical gravity. Further, the topology of such light-atom physics can be used as a new, conceptually simplifying vehicle to understand the propagation of light through more general, and familiar phenomena such as imaging systems and cavities.