Exact electrodynamics versus standard optics for a slab of cold dense gas

Juha Javanainen, Janne Ruostekoski, Yi Li, and Sung-Mi Yoo
Phys. Rev. A 96, 033835 – Published 20 September 2017

Abstract

We study light propagation through a slab of cold gas using both the standard electrodynamics of polarizable media and massive atom-by-atom simulations of the electrodynamics. The main finding is that the predictions from the two methods may differ qualitatively when the density of the atomic sample ρ and the wave number of resonant light k satisfy ρk31. The reason is that the standard electrodynamics is a mean-field theory, whereas for sufficiently strong light-mediated dipole-dipole interactions the atomic sample becomes strongly correlated. The deviations from mean-field theory appear to scale with the parameter ρk3, and we demonstrate noticeable effects already at ρk3102. In dilute gases and in gases with an added inhomogeneous broadening the simulations show shifts of the resonance lines in qualitative agreement with the predicted Lorentz-Lorenz shift and “cooperative Lamb shift,” but the quantitative agreement is unsatisfactory. Our interpretation is that the microscopic basis for the local-field corrections in electrodynamics is not fully understood.

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  • Received 22 March 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.96.033835

©2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Atomic, Molecular & Optical

Authors & Affiliations

Juha Javanainen1, Janne Ruostekoski2, Yi Li1, and Sung-Mi Yoo3,4,1

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3046, USA
  • 2Mathematical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
  • 3Department of Liberal Arts, Hongik University, 94 Wausan-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04066, South Korea
  • 4School of Computational Sciences, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, 85 Hoegiro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 02455, South Korea

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 3 — September 2017

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