Cavity optomechanics with a trapped, interacting Bose-Einstein condensate

The dispersive interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a single mode of a high-finesse optical cavity realizes the radiation pressure coupling Hamiltonian. In this system the role of the mechanical oscillator is played by a single condensate excitation mode that is selected by the cavity mode function. We study the effect of atomic s-wave collisions and show that it merely renormalizes parameters of the usual optomechanical interaction. Moreover, we show that even in the case of strong harmonic confinement – which invalidates the use of Bloch states – a single excitation mode of the Bose-Einstein condensate couples significantly to the light field, that is the simplified picture of a single “mechanical” oscillator mode remains valid.