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arXiv · 1911.00463

Universal power law decay in the dynamic hysteresis of an optical cavity with non-instantaneous photon-photon interactions

Z. Geng·K. J. H. Peters·A. A. P. Trichet·K. Malmir·R. Kolkowski·J. M. Smith·S. R. K. Rodriguez
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Abstract

We investigate, experimentally and theoretically, the dynamic optical hysteresis of a coherently driven cavity with non-instantaneous photon-photon interactions. By scanning the frequency detuning between the driving laser and the cavity resonance at different speeds across an optical bistability, we find a hysteresis area that is a non-monotonic function of the scanning speed. As the scanning speed increases and approaches the memory time of the photon-photon interactions, the hysteresis area decays following a power law with exponent -1. The exponent of this power law is independent of the system parameters. To reveal this universal scaling behavior theoretically, we introduce a memory kernel for the interaction term in the standard driven-dissipative Kerr model. Our results offer new perspectives for exploring non-Markovian dynamics of light using arrays of bistable cavities with low quality factors, driven by low laser powers, and at room temperature.

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Z. Geng, K. J. H. Peters, A. A. P. Trichet, K. Malmir, R. Kolkowski, J. M. Smith, S. R. K. Rodriguez. 2019-11-01. Universal power law decay in the dynamic hysteresis of an optical cavity with non-instantaneous photon-photon interactions. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.124.153603

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