Quantum theory for spatial motion of polaritons in inhomogeneous fields

Journal Article · Fri Feb 15 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.77.023816· OSTI ID:21140563

Lan, Zhou ^[1]; Jing, Lu ^[1]; Zhou, D L ^[2]; Sun, C P ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081 (China)
2. Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080 (China)
3. Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080 (China)

Polaritons are the collective excitations of many atoms dressed by resonant photons, which can be used to explain the slow light propagation with the mechanism of electromagnetically induced transparency. As quasiparticles, these collective excitations possess the typical feature of the matter particles, which can be reflected and deflected by the inhomogeneous medium in its spatial motion with some velocity. In this paper we develop a quantum theory to systematically describe the spatial motion of polaritons in inhomogeneous magnetic and optical fields. This theoretical approach treats these quasiparticles through an effective Schroedinger equation with anisotropic dispersion that the longitudinal motion is similar to an ultrarelativistic motion of a 'slow light velocity' while the transverse motion is of nonrelativity with certain effective mass. We find that, after passing through the EIT medium, the light ray bends due to the spatial-dependent profile of external field. This phenomenon explicitly demonstrates the exotic corpuscular and anisotropic property of polaritons.

• OSTI ID: 21140563
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 77; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ANISOTROPY
ATOMS
COLLECTIVE EXCITATIONS
DISPERSIONS
EFFECTIVE MASS
INHOMOGENEOUS FIELDS
LIGHT TRANSMISSION
OPACITY
OPTICS
PARTICLES
PHOTONS
POLARONS
RELATIVISTIC RANGE
SCHROEDINGER EQUATION
VELOCITY
VISIBLE RADIATION
WAVE PROPAGATION