Coupling of polaritons to vibrational modes of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice

The coupling of internal electronic excitations to vibrational modes of the external motion of ultracold atoms in an optical lattice is studied here in using a perturbation expansion in small atomic displacements. In the Mott insulator case with one atom per site, the resonance dipole-dipole coupling between neighboring sites can induce emission and absorption of vibrational quanta. Within a cavity in the strong exciton-photon coupling regime such coupling results in polariton-vibration interactions, which create a significant thermalization mechanism for polaritons toward their minimum energy, and leading to motional heating of the lattice atoms. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.