2006/03/06 by A. Gero, Aharon Gero, Éric Akkermans +1 · 2 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Condensed matter physics #Mean free path #Mesoscopic physics #Photon #Physics #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Scattering #Superradiance #cond-mat.mes-hall
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.96.093601
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 093601 (2006) · 4 pages and 1 figure
openalex publication_date 2006/03/06 · arxiv created 2006/03/27 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We show that in atomic gases cooperative effects like superradiance and subradiance lead to a potential between two atoms that decays like 1/r. In the case of superradiance, this potential is attractive for close enough atoms and can be interpreted as a coherent mesoscopic effect. The contribution of superradiant pairs to multiple scattering properties of a dilute gas, such as photon elastic mean free path and group velocity, is significantly different from that of independent atoms. We discuss the conditions under which these effects may be observed and compare our results to recent experiments on photon transport in cold atomic gases.