title: Photon bubbles in ultracold matter.
abstract: We show that static and oscillating photon bubbles can be excited by diffused light in the laser cooled matter confined in a magneto-optical trap. The bubble instability is due to the coupling between the radiation field and the mean field oscillations of the ultracold gas, and it can provide a source for low frequency turbulence. We consider a diffusion-dominated regime, which can be described by a radiation transport equation, coupled with the mean field equations for the cold atom gas. A perturbative analysis shows the occurrence of two different regimes with either oscillating or purely growing bubbles. This work could also be useful to understand similar processes in astrophysics.
authors.affiliation: IPFN, Instituto Superior Técnico, Avenida Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal. titomend@ist.utl.pt
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Mendonça
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaiser