Decay of stationary light pulses in ultracold atoms

Journal Article · Mon Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2010 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.81.033822· OSTI ID:21408504

Jinhui, Wu ^[1]; Artoni, M ^[2]; La Rocca, G C ^[3]

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1. College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun 130023 (China)
2. Department of Physics and Chemistry of Materials, CNR-IDASC Sensor Lab, Brescia University, Via Valotti 9, I-25133 Brescia (Italy)
3. Scuola Normale Superiore and CNISM, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa (Italy)

We develop a general scheme for studying the optical response of ultracold atoms driven into a regime of standing-wave electromagnetically induced transparency. We rely on full numerical solutions of the Maxwell-Liouville equations without invoking secular and adiabatic approximations and arbitrary initial state assumptions. These approximations and assumptions can conceal, e.g., significant loss and diffusion responsible for the decay of stationary light pulses in cold atomic samples. The complex decay dynamics of a stationary light pulse is here analyzed in terms of higher-order spin and optical coherences that arise from nonlinear interactions of the stationary light pulse with the two counterpropagating components of a standing-wave driving field. Specific results for stationary light pulses in cold {sup 87}Rb atoms have been discussed for temperature regimes where the residual Doppler broadening is negligible.

• OSTI ID: 21408504
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 81, Issue 3; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.81.033822; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ADIABATIC APPROXIMATION
ATOMS
BOLTZMANN-VLASOV EQUATION
COMPLEXES
DIFFUSION
DOPPLER BROADENING
INTERACTIONS
LOSSES
NONLINEAR PROBLEMS
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PULSES
RUBIDIUM 87
SPIN
STANDING WAVES
VISIBLE RADIATION
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
APPROXIMATIONS
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CALCULATION METHODS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EQUATIONS
INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI
ISOTOPES
LINE BROADENING
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
RADIATIONS
RADIOISOTOPES
RUBIDIUM ISOTOPES
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES