Cold atoms in optical high-Q cavities are an ideal model system forlong-range interacting particles. The position of two arbitrary atoms is,independent on their distance, coupled by the back-scattering of photons withinthe cavity. This mutual coupling can lead to collective instability andself-organization of a cloud of cold atoms interacting with the cavity fields.This phenomenon (CARL, i.e. Collective Atomic Recoil Lasing) has been discussedtheoretically for years, but was observed only recently in our lab. TheCARL-effect is closely linked to superradiant Rayleigh Scattering, which hasbeen intensely studied with Bose-Einstein condensates in free space. By addinga resonator the coherence time of the system, in which the instability occurs,can be strongly enhanced. This enables us to observe cavity-enhancedsuperradiance with both Bose-Eisntein condensed and thermal clouds and allowsus to close the discussion about the role of quantum statistics in superradiantscattering.
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