Collective Rabi Oscillations and Cold Collisions

We examine cold atomic collisions within a resonant optical cavity. The quantized cavity mode can be used to manipulate the collisions between the cold atoms, such that periodic exchange of excitations between the atoms and the electromagnetic field strongly alters the collision dynamics. A colliding pair of atoms can thereby oscillate between its ground and excited states during the collision time. Using a semiclassical model, it can be predicted that such Rabi-like oscillations are revealed in the atomic trap-loss probabilities, which show maxima and minima as a function of the detuning between the frequencies of the mode and the atomic transition.