Supervisor: 

Florian Mintert

Rob Nyman

Quantum coherence and condensation in driven quantum gases

The content of this report represents the work done during the rst 9 months of my PhD. It contains an introduction to the eld of photon Bose-Einstein condensates, along with a review of contemporary work and requisite background information. It's purpose is threefold, to serve as a record of the work done during the 9 months, to provide a starting point for the rest of my PhD, and to provide an introduction to the eld for those unfamiliar with it.

The Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) was rst theorised in 1925 by Bose and Einstein as a new state of matter characterised by a macroscopic occupation of the ground state and a thermal population of other states. However it was 70 years before the phenomenon was rst observed in magnetically trapped rubidium by Anderson et al. and trapped sodium by Davis et al. [1, 2]. Since then Bose-Einstein condensation has also been observed in exciton-polaritons, magnons , and in photons. It is also related to the phenomenon of super uidity, which has been studied in helium for decades.