Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons and Grand-Canonical Condensate Fluctuations

doi:10.1017/9781316084366.021

19 - Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons and Grand-Canonical Condensate Fluctuations

from Part IV - Condensates in Condensed Matter Physics

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2017

J. Klaers and

Edited by

David W. Snoke and

J. Klaers: Affiliation:
Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn, Wegelerstr
M. Weitz: Affiliation:
Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn, Wegelerstr
Nick P. Proukakis: Affiliation:
Newcastle University
David W. Snoke: Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Peter B. Littlewood: Affiliation:
University of Chicago

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Summary

We review recent experiments on the Bose-Einstein condensation of photons in a dye-filled optical microresonator. The most well-known example of a photon gas, photons in blackbody radiation, does not show Bose-Einstein condensation. Instead of massively populating the cavity ground mode, photons vanish in the cavity walls when they are cooled down. The situation is different in an ultrashort optical cavity imprinting a low-frequency cutoff on the photon energy spectrum that is well above the thermal energy. The latter allows for a thermalization process in which both temperature and photon number can be tuned independently of each other or, correspondingly, for a nonvanishing photon chemical potential. We here describe experiments demonstrating the fluorescence-induced thermalization and Bose-Einstein condensation of a two-dimensional photon gas in the dye microcavity. Moreover, recent measurements on the photon statistics of the condensate, showing Bose-Einstein condensation in the grand-canonical ensemble limit, will be reviewed.

Introduction

Quantum statistical effects become relevant when a gas of particles is cooled, or its density is increased, to the point where the associated de Broglie wavepackets spatially overlap. For particles with integer spin (bosons), the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) then leads to macroscopic occupation of a single quantum state at finite temperatures [1]. Bose-Einstein condensation in the gaseous case was first achieved in 1995 by laser and subsequent evaporative cooling of a dilute cloud of alkali atoms [2, 3, 4], as detailed in Chapter 3 of this volume. The condensate atoms can be described by a macroscopic singleparticle wavefunction, similar to the case of liquid helium [1]. Bose-Einstein condensation has also been observed for exciton-polaritons, which are hybrid states of matter and light [5, 6, 7] (see Chapter 4), magnons [8] (see Chapter 25), and other physical systems. Other than material particles, photons usually do not show Bose-Einstein condensation [9]. In blackbody radiation, the most common Bose gas, photons at low temperature disappear, instead of condensing to a macroscopically occupied ground-state mode. In this system, photons have a vanishing chemical potential, meaning that the number of photons is determined by the available thermal energy and cannot be tuned independently from temperature.

Type: Chapter
Information: Universal Themes of Bose-Einstein Condensation , pp. 391 - 408

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316084366.021 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2017

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19 - Bose-Einstein Condensation of Photons and Grand-Canonical Condensate Fluctuations

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