Formation of Bose–Einstein condensate structures in laser fields: semiclassical approach and electrodynamic effects

The formation of Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC) structures via electromagnetically induced interactions is analyzed within a semiclassical approach where an improved interaction potential is obtained. This analysis shows how the laser-induced forces can lead to self-confinement of the ground state even with a homogeneous field. It furthermore indicates that the vector character of the field can be crucially important, since it can change the type of nonlinearity, thus strongly modifying the BEC structures.