Optimized multifrequency light collection by adaptive self-ordering of scatterers in optical resonators

Mobile light scatterers in a high-Q optical cavity transversely illuminated by laser light close to a cavity resonance form ordered patterns, which maximize light scattering into the cavity and induce optical self-trapping. We show that a generalized form of such crystallization dynamics appears in multicolored pump fields with several cavity modes. Here the particles arrange in spatial patterns maximizing total light collection into the resonator. For changing input frequencies and strengths the particles dynamically adapt to the current illumination. Interestingly the system keeps some memory on past configurations, so that a later renewed application of the same pattern exhibits faster adaptation towards optimal collective scattering. In a noisy environment particles explore larger regions of configuration space spending most of the time close to optimum scattering configurations. This adaptive self-ordering dynamics should be implementable in a wide range of systems ranging from cold atoms in multimode cavities or nano-fiber traps to molecules or mobile nano-particles within an optical resonator.