2013/08/06 by G. Labeyrie, Labeyrie, Guillaume, Enrico Tesio +15
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Optics (physics.optics) #Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS) #Quantum Gases (cond-mat.quant-gas) #Quantum Mechanics and Applications
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1308.1226
openalex publication_date 2013/08/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The rapidly developing field of optomechanics aims at the combined control of optical and mechanical (solid-state or atomic) modes. In particular, laser cooled atoms have been used to exploit optomechanical coupling for self-organization in a variety of schemes where the accessible length scales are constrained by a combination of pump modes and those associated to a second imposed axis, typically a cavity axis. Here, we consider a system with many spatial degrees of freedom around a single distinguished axis, in which two symmetries - rotations and translations in the plane orthogonal to the pump axis - are spontaneously broken. We observe the simultaneous spatial structuring of the density of a cold atomic cloud and an optical pump beam. The resulting patterns have hexagonal symmetry. The experiment demonstrates the manipulation of matter by opto-mechanical self-assembly with adjustable length scales and can be potentially extended to quantum degenerate gases.