Spatiotemporal coherence of non-equilibrium multimode photon condensates

We report on the observation of quantum coherence of Bose-Einstein condensed photons in an optically-pumped, dye-filled microcavity. We find that coherence is long-range in space and time above condensation threshold, but short-range below threshold, compatible with thermal-equilibrium theory. Far a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-02
Main Authors: Marelic, Jakov, Zajiczek, Lydia F, Hesten, Henry J, Leung, Kon H, Ong, Edward Y X, Mintert, Florian, Nyman, Robert A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Condensates
Condensation
Equilibrium
Molecular structure
Photons
Quantum phenomena
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We report on the observation of quantum coherence of Bose-Einstein condensed photons in an optically-pumped, dye-filled microcavity. We find that coherence is long-range in space and time above condensation threshold, but short-range below threshold, compatible with thermal-equilibrium theory. Far above threshold, the condensate is no longer at thermal equilibrium and is fragmented over non-degenerate, spatially overlapping modes. A microscopic theory including cavity loss, molecular structure and relaxation shows that this multimode condensation is similar to multimode lasing induced by imperfect gain clamping.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1510.05562