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# Exact electrodynamics versus standard optics for a slab of cold dense gas

Javanainen, Juha, Ruostekoski, Janne, Li, Yi and Yoo, Sung-Mi (2017) Exact electrodynamics versus standard optics for a slab of cold dense gas. Physical Review A, 96 (9), [033835].

Record type: Article

## Abstract

We study light propagation through a slab of cold gas using both the standard electrodynamics of polarizable media, and massive atom-by-atom simulations of the electrodynamics. The main finding is that the predictions from the two methods may differ qualitatively when the density of the atomic sample $\rho$ and the wavenumber of resonant light $k$ satisfy $\rho k^{-3}\gtrsim 1$. The reason is that the standard electrodynamics is a mean-field theory, whereas for sufficiently strong light-mediated dipole-dipole interactions the atomic sample becomes correlated. The deviations from mean-field theory appear to scale with the parameter $\rho k^{-3}$, and we demonstrate noticeable effects already at $\rho k^{-3} \simeq 10^{-2}$. In dilute gases and in gases with an added inhomogeneous broadening the simulations show shifts of the resonance lines in qualitative agreement with the predicted Lorentz-Lorenz shift and "cooperative Lamb shift", but the quantitative agreement is unsatisfactory. Our interpretation is that the microscopic basis for the local-field corrections in electrodynamics is not fully understood.

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pdf - Author's Original
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PRA_sub_v140 - Accepted Manuscript
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PhysRevA.96.033835 - Version of Record

Submitted date: 22 March 2017
Accepted/In Press date: 30 August 2017
e-pub ahead of print date: 20 September 2017
Published date: September 2017
Keywords: physics.optics, physics.atom-ph
Organisations: Applied Mathematics

## Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 408387
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/408387
ISSN: 1050-2947
PURE UUID: 9775e9d9-527a-43da-8fc6-4bb59aa1fa72

## Catalogue record

Date deposited: 19 May 2017 04:04

## Contributors

Author: Juha Javanainen
Author: Yi Li
Author: Sung-Mi Yoo