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Journal of Modern Optics

Anomalous transmission in atom optics

Herman Batelaan, Ernst Maria Rasel, Markus K. Oberthaler, Jörg Schmiedmayer, Anton Zeilinger

Published Nov 1, 1997• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Anomalous transmission for X-rays in crystals as discovered by Borrmann can also be observed for atoms interacting with a standing light wave on resonance. It may be interpreted as a manifestation of a grey state. We describe phenomena based on anomalous transmission for various regimes of the atom-light interaction and elucidate these by numerical calculations for argon and calcium. The grey state in anomalous transmission is linked to the dark state in velocity selective coherent population trapping in atomic threelevel A systems.

DOI
10.1080/09500349708231906

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Anomalous transmission for X-rays in crystals as discovered by Borrmann can also be observed for atoms interacting with a standing light wave on resonance. It may be interpreted as a manifestation of a grey state. We describe phenomena based on anomalous transmission for various regimes of the atom-light interaction and elucidate these by numerical calculations for argon and calcium. The grey state in anomalous transmission is linked to the dark state in velocity selective coherent population trapping in atomic threelevel A systems.
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When an atom, in a linear superposition of states, absorbs or emits light, interference can occur between two different absorption or emission amplitudes, giving rise to observable physical effects, such as level crossing resonances, quantum beats, and dark states. Early experimental demonstrations of effects of this kind, using an optical detection of the atomic internal state, are briefly reviewed. In fact, such interference effects are still playing a fundamental role in modern developments, such as laser cooling and trapping. We present in this paper a few examples of such applications, including the mechanical Hanle effect, velocity selective resonances for an atom moving in a standing wave and subrecoil laser cooling by Velocity Selective Coherent Population Trapping (VSCPT).
We study the dynamic diffraction of atoms by a standing light wave in the limit where the recoil shift is much larger than the atomic linewidth. We demonstrate the appearance of a damped Pendellosung as well as anomalous transmission, which is equivalent to optical pumping into dark superpositions of the same internal atomic state with different external momenta. As an example, we discuss the case of metastable He coupled to the ground state via an anti-Stokes - Raman transition. We show that besides leading to a very narrow velocity selection for the deflected atoms, this effect could, in principle, be used to build a large-angle coherent beamsplitter and a large-area interferometer for metastable helium. We calculate the signal contrast and flux including initial velocity spread and decoherence through spontaneous emission for such an interferometer.
The control of light transmission through a standing-wave Fabry-P\'erot cavity containing atoms is theoretically and numerically investigated, when the cavity mode beam and an intersecting control beam are both close to specific atomic resonances. A four-level atomic system is considered and its interaction with the cavity mode is studied by solving for the cavity field and atomic state populations. The conditions for optical bistability of the atom-cavity system are obtained. The response of the intracavity intensity to an intersecting beam on atomic resonance is understood in the presence of stationary atoms (closed system) and nonstatic atoms (open system) in the cavity. The nonstatic system of atoms is modelled by adjusting the atomic state populations to represent the exchange of atoms in the cavity mode, which corresponds to a thermal environment where atoms are moving in and out of the cavity mode volume. The control behavior with three- and two-level atomic systems is also studied, and the rich physics arising out of these systems for closed and open atomic systems is discussed. The solutions to the models are used to interpret the steady-state and transient behavior observed by Sharma et al. [Phys. Rev. A 91, 043824 (2015)].
We demonstrate a new type of optical lattice which confines atoms in nearly dark states. The lattice is formed by cooperation of an optical standing wave detuned to the blue with respect to an atomic $F\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1\ensuremath{\rightarrow}F\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}1$ transition and a homogeneous magnetic field. The atoms are predominantly localized where the light is purely $\ensuremath{\pi}$ polarized such that they are optically pumped to the mF=0{m}_{F}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0mF​=0 Zeeman component which is decoupled from the light field. We have observed quantized vibrations of the localized atoms by means of probe transmission spectroscopy. Our ``dark'' optical lattice works in two and three dimensions.