Eur. Phys. J. D (2012) 66: 271
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2012-30288-8

Regular Article

Controllable band loops of ultracold atoms in a cavity

¹ School of Mathematics and Computer Science, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang 550001, P.R. China
² Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, P.O. Box 8009 (28), Beijing 100088, P.R. China

^a e-mail: lbfu@iapcm.ac.cn

Received: 3 May 2012
Received in final form: 22 August 2012
Published online: 25 October 2012

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the atomic energy band of ultracold atoms inside a laser-driven optical cavity with Kerr medium. This cavity-atom hybrid system has two kinds of interactions: photon-atom interaction and photon-photon one. We find the loops of the atomic energy band induced by photon-atom interaction disappear when the Kerr interaction between photons exceeds a critical value. The reason of the controllably atomic energy band loops by Kerr interaction is discussed.