Thesis

Theory of self-organisation in cold atoms

Creator
Rights statement
Awarding institution
  • University of Strathclyde
Date of award
  • 2014
Thesis identifier
  • T13690
Qualification Level
Qualification Name
Department, School or Faculty
Abstract
  • Since the first realization of a laser source in 1960, tremendous progresses have been made in the theoretical understanding and experimental control of interacting atomic-optical systems. Optical fields can nowadays be used to engineer long-range interactions in cold atomic gases, manipulating the external degrees of freedom of the atoms via optical forces. This opens the possibility for the study of highly controllable and tunable long-range interacting systems, in which a complex dynamics for the motional properties of the gas can arise due to the effective atom-atom coupling induced by the field. In this thesis the spontaneous emergence of spatial structures in non-equilibrium atom-optical systems is theoretically and numerically investigated, for different geometries and physical configurations. Extending previous research in hot atomic gases, self-organising instabilities involving the external degrees of freedom are studied, and in contrast to other cold-atom spatial instabilities the spontaneous breaking of continuous symmetries is predicted. The main focus of the work presented in this thesis is on dynamical instabilities in cold gases. However, connections are found with other fields of nonlinear physics, such as synchronisation of coupled oscillators and phase transitions in many-body systems. Part of the research presented here has been conducted in the context of a collaboration with the Photonics group at Strathclyde and the Institut non LineĢaire de Nice, in which experimental observations of self-organisation and continuous symmetry breaking were obtained.
Resource Type
DOI
Date Created
  • 2014
Former identifier
  • 1028817

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