Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Coherent scattering of near-resonant light by a dense microscopic cold atomic cloud
AU - Jennewein, S.
AU - Besbes, M.
AU - Schilder, N.J.
AU - Jenkins, S.D.
AU - Sauvan, C.
AU - Ruostekoski, J.
AU - Greffet, J.-J.
AU - Sortais, Y.R.P.
AU - Browaeys, A.
N1 - Funded by EPSRC: Quantum Technology Hub for Sensors and Metrology (EP/M013294/1)
PY - 2016/6/8
Y1 - 2016/6/8
N2 - We measure the coherent scattering of light by a cloud of laser-cooled atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. By interfering a laser beam tuned near an atomic resonance with the field scattered by the atoms, we observe a resonance with a redshift, a broadening, and a saturation of the extinction for increasing atom numbers. We attribute these features to enhanced light-induced dipole-dipole interactions in a cold, dense atomic ensemble that result in a failure of standard predictions such as the “cooperative Lamb shift”. The description of the atomic cloud by a mean-field model based on the Lorentz-Lorenz formula that ignores scattering events where light is scattered recurrently by the same atom and by a microscopic discrete dipole model that incorporates these effects lead to progressively closer agreement with the observations, despite remaining differences
AB - We measure the coherent scattering of light by a cloud of laser-cooled atoms with a size comparable to the wavelength of light. By interfering a laser beam tuned near an atomic resonance with the field scattered by the atoms, we observe a resonance with a redshift, a broadening, and a saturation of the extinction for increasing atom numbers. We attribute these features to enhanced light-induced dipole-dipole interactions in a cold, dense atomic ensemble that result in a failure of standard predictions such as the “cooperative Lamb shift”. The description of the atomic cloud by a mean-field model based on the Lorentz-Lorenz formula that ignores scattering events where light is scattered recurrently by the same atom and by a microscopic discrete dipole model that incorporates these effects lead to progressively closer agreement with the observations, despite remaining differences
U2 - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.233601
DO - 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.233601
M3 - Journal article
VL - 116
JO - Physical review letters
JF - Physical review letters
SN - 1079-7114
IS - 23
M1 - 233601
ER -