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Laser cooling of atomic motion enables a wide variety of technological andscientific explorations using cold atoms. Here we focus on the effect of lasercooling on the photons instead of on the atoms. Specifically, we show thatnon-interacting photons can thermalize with the atoms to a grand canonicalensemble with a non-zero chemical potential. This thermalization isaccomplished via scattering of light between different optical modes, mediatedby the laser cooling process. While optically thin modes lead to traditionallaser cooling of the atoms, the dynamics of multiple scattering in opticallythick modes has been more challenging to describe. We find that in anappropriate set of limits, multiple scattering leads to thermalization of thelight with the atomic motion in a manner that approximately conserves totalphoton number between the laser beams and optically thick modes. In thisregime, the subsystem corresponding to the thermalized modes is describable bya grand canonical ensemble with a chemical potential set by the energy of asingle laser photon. We consider realization of this regime using two-levelatoms in Doppler cooling, and find physically realistic conditions for rareearth atoms. With the addition of photon-photon interactions, this system couldprovide a new platform for exploring many-body physics.

Photon thermalization via laser cooling of atoms