Subrecoil cavity cooling towards degeneracy: A numerical study

We present a detailed numerical analysis of the temperature limit and timescale of cavity cooling of a dilute gas in the quantum regime for particles and light. For a cavity with a linewidth smaller than the recoil frequency efficient cooling towards quantum degeneracy is facilitated by applying a tailored sequence of laser pulses transferring the particles towards lower momenta. Two-particle Monte Carlo wave function simulations reveal strongly improved cooling properties for a ring versus a standing-wave geometry. Distinct quantum correlations and cooling limits for bosons and fermions demonstrate quantum statistical effects. In particular, in ring cavities the photon-mediated long-range interaction favours momentum-space pairing of bosons, while fermion pairs exhibit anti-correlated or uncorrelated momenta. The results are consistent with recent experiments and give encouraging prospects to achieve sufficient conditions for the condensation of a wide class of polarisable particles via cavity cooling.