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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 25: Poster – Cold Atoms and Molecules, Matter Waves (joint session Q/A/MO)

Q 25.45: Poster

Dienstag, 11. März 2025, 14:00–16:00, Tent

Symmetry-Preserving Condensation of Photons — Andreas Redmann, •Riccardo Panico, Frank Vewinger, Julian Schmitt, and Martin Weitz — Institut für Angewandte Physik, Universität Bonn, Wegelerstrasse 8, 53115 Bonn, Germany

We investigate the statistical behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons in a dye-filled optical microcavity. This system enables the observation of grand-canonical statistical conditions through the coupling of photons to a reservoir of dye molecules, supporting the coexistence of macroscopic occupation and unusually large fluctuations of the particles number. Building on prior demonstrations of grand-canonical statistics [1,2], we push the boundaries of our system to explore conditions for which the first- and second-order coherence times become comparable. In this regime, the condensate exhibits a discontinuous phase, driven by the relatively high probability of having zero particles in the condensate, with spontaneous emission of photons from the reservoir setting the phase of the condensate each time. Despite this, photons are expected to exhibit macroscopic occupation on average, while at the same time having characteristics of incoherent light sources. From a thermodynamic perspective, this would translate to the formation of a condensate without spontaneous symmetry breaking.

[1] Julian Schmitt, et al., Laser Spectroscopy, pp. 85-96 (2016)

[2] Julian Schmitt, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 116

Keywords: Photon condensate; Bose-Einstein Condensate