Dicke-type phase transition in a spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensate

Understand

Spin-orbit coupled Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) provide a powerful tool to investigate interesting gauge-field related phenomena.

• We study the ground state properties of such a system and show that it can be mapped to the well-known Dicke model in quantum optics, which describes the interactions between an ensemble of atoms and an optical field.
• A central prediction of the Dicke model is a quantum phase transition between a superradiant phase and a normal phase.
• Here we detect this transition in a spin-orbit coupled BEC by measuring various physical quantities across the phase transition.