SYNCHRONISATION IN ATOMIC AND QUANTUM SYSTEMS

Abstract

Self-sustained oscillations and synchronisation are an important field that studies periodic oscillations and how they adjust to each other and self-organise. This thesis studies these in the context of cold atoms and quantum systems. First I show how self-sustained oscillations can arise in a cloud of cold atoms, then how to synchronise them to a driving and finally compare the results with an experiment. Then I study the quantum Stuart-Landau oscillator, also known as the quantum van der Pol oscillator. I find that additional dissipation can boost synchronisation to an external drive near the ground state, and show how the master equation can be derived from a microscopic model.