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arXiv:1603.02968 · Physical Review A

Control of light trapping in a large atomic system by a static magnetic field

S. E. Skipetrov, Igor M. Sokolov, Mark D. Havey

Published Jul 13, 2016• 43 citations
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Abstract

We propose to control light trapping in a large ensemble of cold atoms by an external, static magnetic field. For an appropriate choice of frequency and polarization of the exciting pulse, the field is expected to speed up the fluorescence of a dilute atomic system. In a dense ensemble, the field does not affect the early-time superradiant signal but amplifies intensity oscillations at intermediate times and induces a very slow, nonexponential long-time decay. The slowing down of fluorescence is due to the excitation of spatially localized collective atomic states that appear only under a strong magnetic field and have exponentially long lifetimes. Our results therefore pave a way towards experimental observation of the disorder-induced localization of light in cold atomic systems.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.94.013825

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We propose to control light trapping in a large ensemble of cold atoms by an external, static magnetic field. For an appropriate choice of frequency and polarization of the exciting pulse, the field is expected to speed up the fluorescence of a dilute atomic system. In a dense ensemble, the field does not affect the early-time superradiant signal but amplifies intensity oscillations at intermediate times and induces a very slow, nonexponential long-time decay. The slowing down of fluorescence is due to the excitation of spatially localized collective atomic states that appear only under a strong magnetic field and have exponentially long lifetimes. Our results therefore pave a way towards experimental observation of the disorder-induced localization of light in cold atomic systems.
Specific features of fluorescence of dense and cold nondegenerate atomic ensembles in an external constant magnetic field are analyzed theoretically. The angular distribution, polarization properties, as well as the spectral composition of fluorescence radiation are calculated. The time variation of these characteristics after the end of the excitation pulse is analyzed. The dependence of the properties of secondary radiation on the duration and carrier frequency of the pulse is investigated. It is shown that, for dense clouds in which the free path length of quasiresonance photons is commensurate with the interatomic distance, the magnetic field significantly modifies all the observable properties of the radiation. Under these conditions, the trapping time may increase by tens of times. Magnetic field enhances the effect of quantum beats observed on time scales commensurate with the lifetime of the excited states of atoms. For individual polarization channels, this field also intensifies the phenomenon of coherent backscattering (CBS). The phenomena found are explained by the effect of magnetic field on the character of resonance dipole–dipole interaction and, as a result, on the specific features of collective phenomena in dense atomic ensembles.
We report a theoretical investigation of cooperative spontaneous decay of atomic excitation in cold ensemble under condition that average interatomic separation is comparable with resonant light wavelength. We show that magnetostatic field causes some acceleration of decay at shot time interval upon turn off the excitation pulse and essential decreasing of decay rate of long-lived sub-radiant states. The dependence of this effect on duration of excitation pulse as well as on its carrier frequency is considered.
We report an investigation to establish the physical mechanisms responsible for decoherence in the generation of photon pairs from atomic ensembles, via the protocol of Duan et al. for long-distance quantum communication [Nature (London) 414, 413 (2001)] and present the experimental techniques necessary to properly control the process. We develop a theory to model in detail the decoherence process in experiments with magneto-optical traps. The inhomogeneous broadening of the ground state by the trap magnetic field is identified as the principal mechanism for decoherence. The theory includes the Zeeman structure of the atomic hyperfine levels used in the experiment, and the polarization of both excitation fields and detected photons. In conjunction with our theoretical analysis, we report a series of measurements to characterize and control the coherence time in our experimental setup. We use copropagating stimulated Raman spectroscopy to access directly the ground-state energy distribution of the ensemble. These spectroscopic measurements allow us to switch off the trap magnetic field in a controlled way, optimizing the repetition rate for single-photon measurements. With the magnetic field off, we then measure nonclassical correlations for pairs of photons generated by the ensemble as a function of the storage time of the single collective atomic excitation. We report coherence times longer than $10\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$, corresponding to an increase of two orders of magnitude compared to previous results in cold ensembles. The coherence time is now two orders of magnitude longer than the duration of the excitation pulses. The comparison between these experimental results and the theory shows good agreement. Finally, we employ our theory to devise ways to improve the experiment by optical pumping to specific initial states.
We explore the potential of a static electric field to induce Anderson localization of light in a large three-dimensional cloud of randomly distributed, immobile atoms with a nondegenerate ground state (total angular momentum Jg=0{J}_{g}=0Jg​=0) and a threefold-degenerate excited state (Je=1{J}_{e}=1Je​=1). We study both the spatial structure of quasimodes of the atomic cloud and the scaling of the Thouless number with the size of the cloud. Our results indicate that unlike the static magnetic field, the electric field does not induce Anderson localization of light by atoms. We explain this conclusion by the incomplete removal of degeneracy of the excited atomic state by the field and the relatively strong residual dipole-dipole coupling between atoms which is weaker than in the absence of external fields but stronger than in the presence of a static magnetic field. A joint analysis of these results together with our previous results concerning Anderson localization of scalar waves and light suggests the existence of a critical strength of dipole-dipole interactions that should not be surpassed for Anderson localization to be possible in three dimensions.
In this paper, we have demonstrated that optically generated fictitious magnetic fields can be utilized to extend the lifetime of quantum memories in cold atomic ensembles. All the degrees of freedom of an AC Stark shift, such as polarization, spatial profile, and temporal waveform, can be readily controlled in a precise manner. Temporal fluctuations over several experimental cycles and spatial inhomogeneities along a cold atomic gas have been compensated by an optical beam. The advantage of employing fictitious magnetic fields for quantum storage lies in the speed and spatial precision with which these fields can be synthesized. Our simple and versatile technique can find widespread application in coherent pulse and single-photon storage across various atomic species. Published by the American Physical Society 2024