The experiment, conducted by the Institute of Applied Physics (IAP) at the University of Bonn, in collaboration with the RPTU, relied on confining and cooling photons to create a photon gas. "To create these types of gases, we need to concentrate lots of photons in a confined space and cool them simultaneously," said Dr. Frank Vewinger from IAP, also part of the transdisciplinary research area "Matter" at the University of Bonn.
In this experiment, a laser excited a dye solution inside a tiny container, causing the resulting photons to bounce between the reflective walls, gradually cooling and forming a photon gas. The dimensionality of this gas was altered by modifying the container's reflective surfaces using microscopically structured polymers.
"These polymers act like a type of gutter, but in this case for light," explained Kirankumar Karkihalli Umesh, the study's lead author. By narrowing the structures on the container's surfaces, the gas behaved more one-dimensionally, allowing the research teams to investigate the transition between different dimensionalities.
One significant finding of the study is that in a one-dimensional system, thermal fluctuations can impact the phase transition. "So-called thermal fluctuations take place in photon gases but they are so small in two dimensions that they have no real impact. However, in one dimension these fluctuations can - figuratively speaking - make big waves," added Vewinger.
The study demonstrated that one-dimensional photon gases do not have a well-defined condensation point, unlike in two dimensions, where phase transitions occur at precise temperature thresholds. These observations mark an important step in understanding quantum gases and pave the way for further exploration of quantum optical effects.
Research Report:Dimensional crossover in a quantum gas of light
Related Links
Institute of Applied Physics
Understanding Time and Space
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