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Updated: Nov 2, 2025

Cooling an Optically Trapped Ultracold Fermi Gas by Periodical Driving
Published on: March 30, 2017
Multiple Self-Organized Phases and Spatial Solitons in Cold Atoms Mediated by Optical Feedback
Giuseppe Baio1, Gordon R M Robb1, Alison M Yao1
1SUPA and Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow G4 0NG, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
We study the transverse self-structuring of cold atomic clouds with effective atomic interactions mediated by a coherent driving beam retroreflected by means of a single mirror. The resulting self-structuring due to optomechanical forces is much richer than that of an effective-Kerr medium, displaying hexagonal, stripe and honeycomb phases depending on the interaction strength parametrized by the linear susceptibility. Phase domains are described by Ginzburg-Landau amplitude equations with real coefficients. In the stripe phase the system recovers inversion symmetry. Moreover, the subcritical character of the honeycomb phase allows for light-density feedback solitons functioning as self-sustained dark atomic traps with motion controlled by phase gradients in the driving beam.
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