Physical Review Letters

Magneto-Optic Piston Effect

Sushanta Dattagupta, Rupamanjari Ghosh, Jagmeet Singh

Published Jul 26, 1999• 5 citations

Abstract

Light-induced drift of optically active atoms in a buffer gas is a consequence of the unequal diffusive frictions suffered by the excited and the ground-state atoms. This drift can be used to create an ``optical piston,'' which is best observed when the piston action is confined to a one-dimensional motion. We show that a novel way of realizing this phenomenon is to apply a magnetic field on charged active atoms.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.83.710

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