Collective excitations and instability of an optical lattice due to unbalanced pumping

Abstract

We solve self-consistently the coupled equations of motion for trapped particles and the field of a one-dimensional optical lattice. Optomechanical coupling creates long-range interaction between the particles, whose nature depends crucially on the relative power of the pump beams. For asymmetric pumping, traveling density wave-like collective oscillations arise in the lattice, even in the overdamped limit. Increasing the lattice size or pump asymmetry these waves can destabilize the lattice.