The stability of a continuously pumped atom laser

Abstract

In this thesis we theoretically model a continuously pumped atom laser using the mean-field description. We find that it is unstable below a critical scattering length. Above the critical scattering length, the atom laser reaches a steady state, the stability of which increases with pumping. Below this limit the atom laser does not reach a steady state. We show that this instability results from the competition between gain and loss for the excited states of the lasing mode, and show how the nonlinearities stabilise the system. The requirement for a minimum scattering length will determine a fundamental limit for the linewidth of an atom laser beam. We propose a method of stabilising the system below the critical scattering length and investigate its effectiveness