Light-Induced Coherence in an Atom-Cavity System

We demonstrate a light-induced formation of coherence in a cold atomic gas system that utilizes the suppression of a competing density wave (DW) order. The condensed atoms are placed in an optical cavity and pumped by an external optical standing wave, which induces a long-range interaction mediated by photon scattering and a resulting DWorder above a critical pump strength. We show that the light-induced temporal modulation of the pump wave can suppress this DWorder and restore coherence. This establishes a foundational principle of dynamical control of competing orders analogous to a hypothesized mechanism for light-induced superconductivity in high-T-c cuprates.