Observation of cavity-mediated long-range light forces between strongly coupled atoms

Summary form only given. We report on the observation of the many-atom dipole-dipole interaction in an ensemble of ultracold rubidium atoms strongly coupled to the standing-wave field of a weakly driven high-finesse optical cavity. The atoms split the cavity resonance into two normal modes. The many-atom light force changes the spatial distribution of the atoms, creating an asymmetry in the usually symmetric normal-mode spectrum, for intracavity photon numbers much less than one. This asymmetry is investigated as a function of the number of atoms and as a function of the intracavity photon number. Moreover, analytical expressions have been derived for the dipole force and the diffusion coefficient for an atom in presence of other atoms. These expressions allow us to simulate the trajectories of several atoms simultaneously. The calculated and measured spectra agree only if the full motional dynamics of all atoms is taken into account.