On the response of a Bose-Einstein condensate exposed to two counterpropagating ultra-fast laser beams

The effect of light-matter interaction is investigated for a situation where counter propagating laser pulses of localized nature are incident on the atomic condensate. In contrast to the earlier investigations on the similar systems, itu0027s assumed that the laser beams are ultra-fast and they have a $mathrm{sech}^2$ profile. Specifically, we consider a quasi-homogeneous, later extended to inhomogeneous, Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), which is exposed to two counter propagating orthogonally polarized ultra-fast laser beams of equal intensity. The electromagnetic field creates an optical potential for the Bose-Einstein condensate, which in turn modifies the optical field. Hence, light and matter are found to contentiously exchange energy and thus to modify themselves dynamically. In the inhomogenous case, a self-similar method is used here to treat a cigar-shaped BEC exposed to light. Our theoretical analysis in a hither to unexplored regime of BEC-light interaction hints at the solitonic bound state formation in the regime where the atom-atom interaction is repulsive and the light-matter interaction is attractive. The energy diagram also indicates a transfer of energy from photon to atom as the light-matter interaction turns repulsive from attractive.