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Frontiers in Optics

Photon Localization and Mesoscopic Effects in Cold Atoms

Éric Akkermans, Ohad Assaf, Aharon Gero

Published Jan 1, 2005• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Speckle patterns resulting from photon multiple scattering in cold vapors are studied using angular and time correlation functions. The effect of atomic collective states on the photon localization transition in cold atoms is studied.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2005.pdp_a6

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We study the angular correlation function of speckle patterns that result from multiple scattering of photons by cold atomic clouds. We show that this correlation function becomes larger than the value given by Rayleigh law for classical scatterers. These large intensity fluctuations constitute a new mesoscopic effect specific to atom-photon interactions, that could not be observed in other systems such as weakly disordered metals. We provide a complete description of this behavior and expressions that allow for a quantitative comparison with experiments.
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Mesoscopic interference effects in multiple scattering of photons depend crucially on the internal structure of the scatterers. In the present paper, we develop the analytical theory of multiple photon scattering by cold atoms with arbitrary internal hyperfine multiplets. For a specific application, we calculate the enhancement factor of elastic coherent backscattering as a function of detuning from an entire hyperfine multiplet of neighboring resonances that cannot be considered isolated. Our theory permits one to understand why atoms behave differently from classical Rayleigh point-dipole scatterers, and how the classical description is recovered for larger but still microscopic objects like molecules or clusters.
The irradiation of a dilute cloud of cold atoms with a coherent light field produces a random intensity distribution known as laser speckle. Its statistical fluctuations contain information about the mesoscopic scattering processes at work inside the disordered medium. Following up on earlier work by Assaf and Akkermans [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 083601 (2007)], we analyze how static speckle-intensity correlations are affected by an internal Zeeman degeneracy of the scattering atoms. It is proven on general grounds that the speckle correlations cannot exceed the standard Rayleigh law. On the contrary, because which-path information is stored in the internal atomic states, the intensity correlations suffer from strong decoherence and become exponentially small in the diffusive regime applicable to an optically thick cloud.