Abstract
We develop a theory for light propagating in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate in the presence of strong interactions. The resulting many-body correlations are shown to have profound effects on the optical properties of this interacting medium. For weak atom-light coupling, there is a well-defined quasiparticle, the polaron-polariton, supporting light propagation with spectral features differing significantly from the noninteracting case. The damping of the polaron-polariton depends nonmonotonically on the light-matter coupling strength, initially increasing and then decreasing. This gives rise to an interesting crossover between two quasiparticles: a bare polariton and a polaron-polariton, separated by a complex and lossy mixture of light and matter.
- Received 3 September 2019
- Accepted 3 April 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.023102
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society