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Physical Review A

Self-trapping and self-focusing of a coherent atomic beam

Weiping Zhang, Barry C. Sanders, Weihan Tan

Published Aug 1, 1997• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Light-induced dipole-dipole interaction in a coherent atomic-field results in an effective nonlinearity for atoms. This nonlinearity can induce self-trapping and self-focusing of a coherent atomic beam undergoing propagation through a traveling-wave laser beam; we show how such a scheme could be realized and evaluate the critical density required for atomic self-trapping and self-focusing. An analogy to optical self-trapping and self-focusing is discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.56.1433

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Light-induced dipole-dipole interaction in a coherent atomic-field results in an effective nonlinearity for atoms. This nonlinearity can induce self-trapping and self-focusing of a coherent atomic beam undergoing propagation through a traveling-wave laser beam; we show how such a scheme could be realized and evaluate the critical density required for atomic self-trapping and self-focusing. An analogy to optical self-trapping and self-focusing is discussed.
The deleterious effects of dispersion on a propagating coherent atomic pulse, along the axis of a traveling-wave laser beam, can be ameliorated by the nonlinear self-interacting force due to dipole-dipole coupling between atoms. We show that a wide atomic pulse with a particular profile can retain its shape during propagation and, moreover, the momentum of the pulse increases due to photon absorption. For the wide soliton case, we demonstrate analytically that the self-interacting atomic force scales inversely with the third power of the pulse width.
The interaction of copropagating electromagnetic and matter waves is described with a set of coupled higher-order nonlinear Schr\"odinger equations. Optical self-focusing modulates an initially planar wave leading to the generation of dipole forces on the atoms. Atomic channeling due to the dipole forces leads, in the nonlinear regime, to filamentation of the atomic beam. Instability growth rates are calculated for atomic beams with both low and high phase space densities. In one transverse dimension an exact solution is found that describes a coupled optical and atomic soliton.
The propagation of two-component laser radiation in a medium consisting of atoms with a Λ level scheme is investigated. The simultaneous self-focusing of two beams is considered. The main features of this phenomenon are: 1) lowering of the self-focusing threshold by several orders of magnitude in comparison with the known case of saturation of a transition in a two-level atom; 2) a strong dependence of the character of the propagation of the radiation on the difference between the detunings of the two frequency components of the field from resonance, which is associated with fulfillment of the two-photon resonance condition.