Issue |
EPL
Volume 101, Number 1, January 2013
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 14003 | |
Number of page(s) | 6 | |
Section | Electromagnetism, Optics, Acoustics, Heat Transfer, Classical Mechanics, and Fluid Dynamics | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/101/14003 | |
Published online | 22 January 2013 |
Optical analogue of the polaron: Dressed photon in a nonlinear Fabry-Pérot cavity
School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology - Wuhan 430074, PRC
Received: 26 September 2012
Accepted: 21 December 2012
The photon polaron in a two-dimensional optical micro-cavity is investigated within the framework of quantum statistical mechanics. Our experimental set-up is based on a planar Fabry-Pérot cavity filled with a nonlinear non-polar crystal. The Fabry-Pérot cavity provides a chemical potential and an effective mass for a photon, making the system formally equivalent to a two-dimensional gas of number-conserving, massive bosons. A photon polaron is a photon dressed with a cloud of virtual transverse optical phonons, namely, the dressed photon. One of the most important properties of the photon polaron is an increased inert mass. Because of the effect of photon polarons, we find that the photon-photon interaction is enhanced greatly. The photon polaron is a quantum effect of cavity nonlinear optics but its increased inert mass is a classical property.
PACS: 42.50.Ct – Quantum description of interaction of light and matter; related experiments / 05.30.Jp – Boson systems / 71.38.-k – Polarons and electron-phonon interactions
© EPLA, 2013
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