Imperial College London

DrRobertNyman

Faculty of Natural SciencesDepartment of Physics

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+44 (0)20 7594 7909r.nyman Website

 
 
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704Huxley BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Publication Type
Year
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34 results found

Dhar HS, Zuo Z, Rodrigues JD, Nyman RA, Mintert Fet al., 2021, Quest for vortices in photon condensates, PHYSICAL REVIEW A, Vol: 104, ISSN: 2469-9926

Journal article

Nyman RA, Dhar HS, Rodrigues JD, Mintert Fet al., 2021, Phase transitions of light in a dye-filled microcavity: observations and simulations, Journal of Physics: Conference Series, Vol: 1919, Pages: 012006-012006, ISSN: 1742-6588

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Photon thermalisation and condensation in dye-filled microcavities is a growing area of scientific interest, at the intersection of photonics, quantum optics and statistical physics. We give here a short introduction to the topic, together with an explanation of some of our more important recent results. A key result across several projects is that we have a model based on a detailed physical description which has been used to accurately describe experimental observations. We present a new open-source package in Python called PyPBEC which implements this model. The aim is to enable the reader to readily simulate and explore the physics of photon condensates themselves, so this article also includes a working example code which can be downloaded from the GitHub repository.</jats:p>

Journal article

Rodrigues JD, Dhar HS, Walker BT, Smith JM, Oulton RF, Mintert F, Nyman RAet al., 2021, Learning the Fuzzy Phases of Small Photonic Condensates, PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, Vol: 126, ISSN: 0031-9007

Journal article

Nyman R, Smith J, Trichet A, Ash B, Walker Bet al., 2021, Bespoke mirror fabrication for quantum simulation with light in open-access microcavities, Optics Express, Vol: 29, Pages: 10800-10810, ISSN: 1094-4087

In this work, we use focused ion beam (FIB) milling to generate custom mirror shapes for quantum simulation in optical microcavities. In the paraxial limit, light in multimode optical microcavities follows an equation of motion which is equivalent to Schrödinger’s equation, with the surface topography of the mirrors playing the role of the potential energy landscape. FIB milling allows us to engineer a wide variety of trapping potentials for microcavity light, through exquisite control over the mirror topography, including 2D box, 1D waveguide, and Mexican hat potentials. The 2D box potentials are sufficiently flat over tens of microns, that the optical modes of the cavity, found by solving Schrödinger’s equation on the measured cavity topography, are standing-wave modes of the box, rather than localised to deviations. The predicted scattering loss due to surface roughness measured using atomic force microscopy is found to be 177 parts per million, which corresponds to a cavity finesse of 2.2 × 104 once other losses have been taken into account. Spectra from dye-filled microcavities formed using these features show thermalised light in flat 2D potentials close to dye resonance, and spectrally-resolved cavity modes at the predicted frequencies for elliptical potentials. These results also represent a first step towards realising superfluid light and quantum simulation in arbitrary-shaped optical microcavities using FIB milling.

Journal article

Dhar HS, Rodrigues JD, Walker BT, Oulton RF, Nyman RA, Mintert Fet al., 2020, Transport and localization of light inside a dye-filled microcavity, Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol: 102, Pages: 1-9, ISSN: 1050-2947

The driven-dissipative nature of light-matter interaction inside a multimode, dye-filled microcavity makes it an ideal system to study nonequilibrium phenomena, such as transport. In this work, we investigate how light is efficiently transported inside such a microcavity, mediated by incoherent absorption and emission processes. In particular, we show that there exist two distinct regimes of transport, viz. conductive and localized, arising from the complex interplay between the thermalizing effect of the dye molecules and the nonequilibrium influence of driving and loss. The propagation of light in the conductive regime occurs when several localized cavity modes undergo dynamical phase transitions to a condensed, or lasing, state. Furthermore, we observe that, while such transport is robust for weak disorder in the cavity potential, strong disorder can lead to localization of light even under good thermalizing conditions. Importantly, the exhibited transport and localization of light is a manifestation of the nonequilibrium dynamics rather than any coherent interference in the system.

Journal article

Hunter-Gordon M, Szabo Z, Nyman RA, Mintert Fet al., 2020, Quantum simulation of the dephasing Anderson model, Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol: 102, Pages: 022407 – 1-022407 – 4, ISSN: 1050-2947

The interplay of Anderson localization and decoherence results in intricate dynamics that is notoriously difficult to simulate on classical computers. We develop the framework for a quantum simulation of such an open quantum system making use of time-varying randomized gradients, and show that even an implementation with limited experimental resources results in accurate simulations.

Journal article

Marques Rodrigues J, Walker BT, Dhar HS, Oulton R, Mintert F, Nyman RAet al., 2020, Non-stationary statistics and formation jitter in transient photon condensation, Nature Communications, Vol: 11, ISSN: 2041-1723

While equilibrium phase transitions are easily described by order parameters and free-energylandscapes, for their non-stationary counterparts these quantities are usually ill-defined. Here,we probe transient non-equilibrium dynamics of an optically pumped, dye-filled microcavity. Wequench the system to a far-from-equilibrium state and find delayed condensation close to a criticalexcitation energy, a transient equivalent of critical slowing down. Besides number fluctuations nearthe critical excitation energy, we show that transient phase transitions exhibit timing jitter in thecondensate formation. This jitter is a manifestation of the randomness associated with spontaneousemission, showing that condensation is a stochastic, rather than deterministic process. Despite thenon-equilibrium character of this phase transition, we construct an effective free-energy landscapethat describes the formation jitter and allows, in principle, its generalization to a wider class ofprocesses.

Journal article

Walker BT, Hesten HJ, Nyman RA, Mintert Fet al., 2019, Collective excitation profiles and the dynamics of photonic condensates, Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Vol: 100, Pages: 1-7, ISSN: 1050-2947

Photonic condensates are complex systems exhibiting phase transitions due to the interaction with their molecular environment. Given the macroscopic number of molecules that form a reservoir of excitations, numerical simulations are expensive, even for systems with few cavity modes. We present a systematic construction of molecular excitation profiles with a clear hierarchical ordering, such that only modes in the lowest order in the hierarchy directly affect the cavity photon dynamics. In addition to a substantial gain in computational efficiency for simulations of photon dynamics, the explicit spatial shape of the mode profiles offers a clear physical insight into the competition among the cavity modes for access to molecular excitations.

Journal article

Walker BT, Hesten HJ, Dhar HS, Nyman RA, Mintert Fet al., 2019, Non-critical slowing down of photonic condensation, Physical Review Letters, Vol: 123, ISSN: 0031-9007

We investigate the response of a photonic gas interacting with a reservoir ofpumped dye-molecules to quenches in the pump power. In addition to the expecteddramatic critical slowing down of the equilibration time around phasetransitions we find extremely slow equilibration even far away from phasetransitions. This non-critical slowing down can be accounted for quantitativelyby fierce competition among cavity modes for access to the molecularenvironment, and we provide a quantitative explanation for this non-criticalslowing down.

Journal article

Walker BT, Flatten LC, Hesten HJ, Mintert F, Hunger D, Trichet AAP, Smith JM, Nyman RAet al., 2018, Driven-dissipative non-equilibrium Bose-Einstein condensation of less than ten photons, Nature Physics, Vol: 14, Pages: 1173-1177+, ISSN: 1745-2473

In a Bose–Einstein condensate, bosons condense in the lowest-energy mode available and exhibit high coherence. Quantum condensation is inherently a multimode phenomenon, yet understanding of the condensation transition in the macroscopic limit is hampered by the difficulty in resolving populations of individual modes and the coherences between them. Here, we report non-equilibrium Bose–Einstein condensation of 7 ± 2 photons in a sculpted dye-filled microcavity, where the extremely small particle number and large mode spacing of the condensate allow us to measure occupancies and coherences of the individual energy levels of the bosonic field. Coherence of the individual modes is found to generally increase with increasing photon number. However, at the break-down of thermal equilibrium we observe phase transitions to a multimode condensate regime wherein coherence unexpectedly decreases with increasing population, suggesting the presence of strong intermode phase or number correlations despite the absence of a direct nonlinearity. Experiments are well-matched to a detailed non-equilibrium model. We find that microlaser and Bose–Einstein statistics each describe complementary parts of our data and are limits of our model in appropriate regimes, providing elements to inform the debate on the differences between the two concepts1,2.

Journal article

Nyman RA, Walker BT, 2018, Bose-Einstein condensation of photons from the thermodynamic limit to small photon numbers, Journal of Modern Optics, Vol: 65, Pages: 754-766, ISSN: 0950-0340

Photons can come to thermal equilibrium at room temperature by scattering multiple times from a fluorescent dye. By confining the light and dye in a microcavity, a minimum energy is set and the photons can then show Bose–Einstein condensation. We present here the physical principles underlying photon thermalization and condensation, and review the literature on the subject. We then explore the ‘small’ regime where very few photons are needed for condensation. We compare thermal equilibrium results to a rate-equation model of microlasers, which includes spontaneous emission into the cavity, and we note that small systems result in ambiguity in the definition of threshold.

Journal article

Hesten HJ, Nyman RA, Mintert F, 2018, Decondensation in Nonequilibrium Photonic Condensates: When Less Is More, PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, Vol: 120, ISSN: 0031-9007

Journal article

Marelic J, Walker BT, Nyman RA, 2016, Phase-space views into dye-microcavity thermalised and condensed photons, Physical Review A, Vol: 94, ISSN: 1094-1622

We have observed momentum- and position-resolved spectra and images of the photoluminescencefrom thermalised and condensed dye-microcavity photons. The spectra yield the dispersion relationand the potential energy landscape for the photons. From this dispersion relation, below condensa-tion threshold, we nd that the e ective mass is that of a bare cavity photon not a polariton. Abovethreshold, we place an upper bound on the dimensionless two-dimensional interaction strength of~g.10

Journal article

Nyman RA, Marelic J, Zajiczek LF, hesten H, Leung KH, Ong EYX, Mintertet al., 2016, Spatiotemporal coherence of non-equilibrium multimode photon condensates, New Journal of Physics, Vol: 18, ISSN: 1367-2630

We report on the observation of quantum coherence of Bose–Einstein condensed photons in an optically pumped, dye-filled microcavity. We find that coherence is long-range in space and time above condensation threshold, but short-range below threshold, compatible with thermal-equilibrium theory. Far above threshold, the condensate is no longer at thermal equilibrium and is fragmented over non-degenerate, spatially overlapping modes. A microscopic theory including cavity loss, molecular structure and relaxation shows that this multimode condensation is similar to multimode lasing induced by imperfect gain clamping.

Journal article

Nyman R, 2016, Liquid light with a whirl, Physics, Vol: 9, ISSN: 1943-2879

Journal article

Nyman RA, Marelic J, 2015, Experimental evidence for inhomogeneous pumping and energy-dependent effects in photon Bose-Einstein condensation, Physical Review A, Vol: 91, ISSN: 1094-1622

Light thermalized at room temperature in an optically pumped, dye-filled microcavity resembles a model system of noninteracting Bose-Einstein condensation in the presence of dissipation. We have experimentally investigated some of the steady-state properties of this unusual state of light and found features which do not match the available theoretical descriptions. We have seen that the critical pump power for condensation depends on the pump beam geometry, being lower for smaller pump beams. Far below threshold, both intracavity photon number and thermalized photon cloud size depend on pump beam size, with optimal coupling when the pump beam matches the thermalized cloud size. We also note that the critical pump power for condensation depends on the cavity cutoff wavelength and longitudinal mode number, which suggests that energy-dependent thermalization and loss mechanisms are important.

Journal article

Nyman RA, Kohnen M, 2015, Temporal and spatiotemporal correlation functions for trapped Bose gases, Physical Review A, Vol: 91, ISSN: 1094-1622

Density correlations unambiguously reveal the quantum nature of matter. Here, we study correlations between measurements of density in cold-atom clouds at different times at one position, and also at two separated positions. We take into account the effects of finite-size and -duration measurements made by light beams passing through the atom cloud. We specialize to the case of Bose gases in harmonic traps above critical temperature, for weakly perturbative measurements. For overlapping measurement regions, shot-noise correlations revive after a trap oscillation period. For nonoverlapping regions, bosonic correlations dominate at long times, and propagate at finite speeds. Finally, we give a realistic measurement protocol for performing such experiments.

Journal article

Nyman RA, Szymanska MH, 2014, Interactions in dye-microcavity photon condensates and the prospects for their observation, PHYSICAL REVIEW A, Vol: 89, ISSN: 1050-2947

Journal article

Nyman RA, Scheel S, Hinds EA, 2011, Prospects for using integrated atom-photon junctions for quantum information processing, QUANTUM INFORMATION PROCESSING, Vol: 10, Pages: 941-953, ISSN: 1570-0755

Journal article

Kohnen M, Petrov PG, Nyman RA, Hinds EAet al., 2011, Minimally destructive detection of magnetically trapped atoms using frequency-synthesized light, NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS, Vol: 13, ISSN: 1367-2630

Journal article

Kohnen M, Succo M, Petrov PG, Nyman RA, Trupke Met al., 2010, An array of integrated atom–photon junctions, Nature Photonics, Vol: 5, Pages: 35-38

Photonic chips that integrate optical elements on a single device can process vast amounts of information rapidly. A new branch of this technology involves coupling light to cold atoms or Bose–Einstein condensates, the quantum nature of which provides a basis for new information-processing methods. The use of optical waveguides gives the light a small cross-section, making coupling to atoms efficient. In this Letter, we present the first waveguide chip designed to address a Bose–Einstein condensate along a row of independent junctions, which are separated by only 10 µm and have large atom–photon coupling. We describe a fully integrated, scalable design, and demonstrate 11 junctions working as intended, using a low-density cold atom cloud with as little as one atom on average in any one junction. The device suggests new possibilities for engineering quantum states of matter and light on a microscopic scale.

Journal article

Varoquaux G, Nyman RA, Geiger R, Cheinet P, Landragin A, Bouyer Pet al., 2009, How to estimate the differential acceleration in a two-species atom interferometer to test the equivalence principle, NEW JOURNAL OF PHYSICS, Vol: 11, ISSN: 1367-2630

Journal article

Clement J-F, Brantut J-P, Robert-de-Saint-Vincent M, Nyman RA, Aspect A, Bourdel T, Bouyer Pet al., 2009, All-optical runaway evaporation to Bose-Einstein condensation, PHYSICAL REVIEW A, Vol: 79, ISSN: 1050-2947

Journal article

Brantut JP, Clement JF, de Saint Vincent MR, Varoquaux G, Nyman RA, Aspect A, Bourdel T, Bouyer Pet al., 2008, Light-shift tomography in an optical-dipole trap for neutral atoms, PHYSICAL REVIEW A, Vol: 78, ISSN: 1050-2947

Journal article

Varoquaux G, Zahzam N, Chaibi W, Clément JF, Carraz O, Brantut JP, Nyman RA, Pereira Dos Santos F, Mondin L, Rouzé M, Bidel Y, Bresson A, Landragin A, Bouyer Pet al., 2007, I.C.E.: An Ultra-Cold Atom Source for Long-Baseline Interferometric Inertial Sensors in Reduced Gravity, http://uk.arxiv.org/abs/0705.2922, Rencontres de Moriond Gravitational Waves and Experimental Gravity

Conference paper

Nyman RA, Varoquaux G, Lienhart F, Chambon D, Boussen S, Clement J-F, Mueller T, Santarelli G, Dos Santos FP, Clairon A, Bresson A, Landragin A, Bouyer Pet al., 2006, ICE:: a transportable atomic inertial sensor for test in microgravity, Publisher: SPRINGER HEIDELBERG, Pages: 673-681, ISSN: 0946-2171

Conference paper

Nyman RA, Varoquaux G, Villier B, Sacchet D, Moron F, Le Coq Y, Aspect A, Bouyer Pet al., 2006, Tapered-amplified antireflection-coated laser diodes for potassium and rubidium atomic-physics experiments, REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS, Vol: 77, ISSN: 0034-6748

Journal article

Bowley RM, Buu O, Nyman RA, 2004, The effect of the demagnetizing field on the NMR spectra for liquids enclosed in a cylinder, JOURNAL OF LOW TEMPERATURE PHYSICS, Vol: 137, Pages: 1-26, ISSN: 0022-2291

Journal article

Nyman RA, Bowley RM, Owers-Bradley JR, Buu O, Clubb DO, Candela Det al., 2004, Long-lived magneto-dynamic modes in liquid <SUP>3</SUP>He, JOURNAL OF LOW TEMPERATURE PHYSICS, Vol: 137, Pages: 27-43, ISSN: 0022-2291

Journal article

Clubb DO, Buu OVL, Bowley RM, Nyman R, Owers-Bradley JRet al., 2004, Quartz tuning fork viscometers for helium liquids, JOURNAL OF LOW TEMPERATURE PHYSICS, Vol: 136, Pages: 1-13, ISSN: 0022-2291

Journal article

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