Manipulation of Cold Atomic Collisions by Cavity QED Effects

J. I. Kim, R. B. B. Santos, P. Nussenzveig.

Published 2000-08-01, updated 2001-02-01Version 3

We show how the dynamics of collisions between cold atoms can be manipulated by a modification of spontaneous emission times. This is achieved by placing the atomic sample in a resonant optical cavity. Spontaneous emission is enhanced by a combination of multiparticle entanglement together with a higher density of modes of the modified vacuum field, in a situation akin to superradiance. A specific situation is considered and we show that this effect can be experimentally observed as a large suppression in trap-loss rates.