Optical bistability and nonlinear dynamics by saturation of cold Yb atoms in a cavity

We observe optical bistability as well as oscillations in the upper bistable branch when cold ytterbium atoms are dispersively coupled to a high finesse optical cavity. Comparable previous observations were explained by atomic density oscillations in case of a Bose-Einstein condensate or optical pumping in case of a cold cloud of cesium. Both explanations do not apply in our case of thermal atoms with only a single ground state. We propose a...