Nonequilibrium Steady State in a Large Magneto-Optical Trap

oleh: Marius Gaudesius, Yong-Chang Zhang, Thomas Pohl, Guillaume Labeyrie, Robin Kaiser

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: MDPI AG 2022-12-01

Deskripsi

Considering light-mediated long-range interactions between cold atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT), we present numerical evidence of a nonequilibrium steady state (NESS) for sufficiently large number of atoms (><inline-formula><math display="inline"><semantics><msup><mn>10</mn><mn>8</mn></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula>). This state manifests itself as the appearance of an anisotropic distribution of velocity when a MOT approaches the threshold beyond which self-oscillating instabilities occur. Our three-dimensional (3D) spatiotemporal model with nonlocal spatial dependencies stemming from the interatomic interactions has recently been compared successfully to predict different instability thresholds and regimes in experiments with rubidium atoms. The behavior of the NESS is studied as a function of the main MOT parameters, including its spatiotemporal characteristics.