Abstract
It has previously been shown that a dye-filled microcavity can produce a Bose-Einstein condensate of photons. Thermalization of photons is possible via repeated absorption and reemission by the dye molecules. In this paper, we theoretically explore the behavior of the polarization of light in this system. We find that, in contrast to the near complete thermalization between different spatial modes of light, thermalization of polarization states is expected to generally be incomplete. We show that the polarization degree changes significantly from below to above threshold, and explain the dependence of polarization on all relevant material parameters.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 043844 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Physical Review A |
| Volume | 96 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 17 Oct 2017 |
Funding
We acknowledge helpful discussions with R. Nyman and K. E. Ballantine. R.I.M. acknowledges support from the “Laidlaw Research Internship” scheme at the University of St. Andrews. P.K. acknowledges support from Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) (Grant No. EP/M010910/1). J.K. acknowledges support from EPSRC programs “TOPNES” (EP/I031014/1) and “Hybrid polaritonics” (EP/M025330/1).
Keywords
- Bose-Einstein condensate
- absorption
- reemission
- light polarization