Formation of a spin texture in a quantum gas coupled to a cavity

Abstract

We observe cavity mediated spin-dependent interactions in an off-resonantly driven multi-level atomic Bose-Einstein condensate that is strongly coupled to an optical cavity. Applying a driving field with adjustable polarization, we identify the roles of the scalar and the vectorial components of the atomic polarizability tensor for single and multi-component condensates. Beyond a critical strength of the vectorial coupling, we observe a spin texture in a condensate of two internal states, providing perspectives for global dynamic gauge fields and self-consistently spin-orbit coupled gases.