Physical Review A
Magneto-optical rotation in atomic transitions between levels with J=0 and J=1
F. Schuller, Derek N. Stacey
Abstract
We give a density-matrix account of an atom in a dilute vapor which is subject to a magnetic field and through which is propagating plane-polarized monochromatic light with frequency in the vicinity of a transition between levels of total angular momenta $J=0$ and 1, where the degeneracy may be in either the upper or lower level. The master equation approach allows saturation effects to be treated in a nonperturbative manner, and collisions are included within the context of the impact approximation. The particular case of the Voigt effect in a $(\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{1}0)$ transition (lower level $J=1$) is considered in detail, and contrasted with that in $(\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{0}1),$ already published; in the absence of collisions, the $(\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{1}0)$ rotation spectrum is of Lorentzian form at all intensities, while if collisional relaxation is much faster than radiative decay, it takes the same form as for the $(\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{0}1)$ case. The rotation produced by a magnetic field of arbitrary direction and the effects of atomic motion are also discussed.