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Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics Letters

Laser acceleration of atoms by a nonlinear mechanism

H. K. Avetissian, A. K. Avetissian, G. F. Mkrtchian

Published Nov 1, 2003• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A nonlinear threshold phenomenon at the interaction of atoms with two counter-propagating light beams of different frequencies is presented. The existence of a critical intensity of the interference field is shown, which is the threshold of nonlinear resonance achieved in the field. This phenomenon leads to acceleration or deceleration of the atom, depending on its initial velocity. Such acceleration/deceleration of shock character, because of the impact with the potential barrier, occurs on ultrashort distances on the order of laser wavelengths, and depends neither on the field magnitude nor on interaction length.

DOI
10.1134/1.1644303

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A nonlinear threshold phenomenon at the interaction of atoms with two counter-propagating light beams of different frequencies is presented. The existence of a critical intensity of the interference field is shown, which is the threshold of nonlinear resonance achieved in the field. This phenomenon leads to acceleration or deceleration of the atom, depending on its initial velocity. Such acceleration/deceleration of shock character, because of the impact with the potential barrier, occurs on ultrashort distances on the order of laser wavelengths, and depends neither on the field magnitude nor on interaction length.
The theoretical and numerical results on the nonlinear dynamics of an atom in the fields of two counterpropagating radiation beams of different frequencies are presented. Both resonant and nonresonant interaction regimes are investigated. The atom center-of-mass energy dependence on the field amplitudes exhibits the nonlinear threshold effect of reflection of an atom in the interference field. This phenomenon leads to the atom acceleration or deceleration depending on its initial state. This acceleration or deceleration is base of a shock character because of the impact with the moving potential barrier; it occurs at ultrashort distances on the order of radiation field wavelengths. Furthermore, the role of initial conditions is discussed and analyzed numerically.
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.
We address theoretically the effects of a large laser intensity on the phenomenon of light-induced drift. The velocity selectivity of the atom-field interaction decreases due to saturation broadening and this leads to a maximum of the drift velocity as a function of the laser intensity. Analytical expressions for the drift velocity are derived in the case of two-level atoms, assuming a strong collision model. Consequences of this high-field effect are discussed for various manifestations of light-induced drift such as propagation of a soliton in an infinitely long cell, described by the Burgers equation, and collisions of such solitons. The analogy with hydrodynamic shock waves, described by the same Burgers equation, is fruitfully explored. We also address high-field effects on the density distribution produced by light-induced drift in a finite cell. In all these manifestations of light-induced drift the cases of high field and low field show qualitatively different behaviors which are of a complementary nature.
A novel mechanism is proposed for optical bistability by utilizing the effect of interference which occurs when two levels are coupled by a one-photon resonance and by a two-photon resonance. The resulting bistability does not require atomic saturation, so the bistability can be observed at relatively low incident intensities, and the mechanism is essentially Doppler free, since it occurs by a two-photon process involving absorption of counterpropagating beams of the same frequency. A significant feature is that two-photon bistability can be controlled not only by the magnitude of the field of the one-photon resonance but also by its phase, and an oscillation or amplification of the field of the two-photon resonance can be observed under certain conditions by the mechanism of the parametric interaction of the field of the one-photon resonance and the field of the two-photon resonance through a nonlinear medium.
It has been shown that nonlinear near-field optical resonances occur in diatomic nanostructures consisting of identical or different two-level atoms in the presence of a radiation field when the dipole-dipole interaction is taken into account. The frequencies of these resonances depend strongly on the intensity of the external optical radiation, on the initial conditions, on the polarization of the external field with respect to the axis of the nanostructure, and on the interatomic distance. The interatomic interaction is taken into account beyond perturbation theory. For this reason, the effective polarizabilities of the atoms of the nanostructure are expressed in terms of the polynomials of both the interatomic distance and the electric field strength of the external optical wave. A “falling tower” effect that is caused by the nonlinear behavior of the local dipole moments of atoms in the nanostructure is predicted.