Physical Review A
Postselection of a polarization basis in intensity correlations under electromagnetically induced transparency
Hee Jung Lee, Taek Jeong, Han Seb Moon
Abstract
We report on switching the intensity correlation or anticorrelation by changing the polarization basis for measuring light that has already propagated through the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) medium of the $5{S}_{1/2}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}(F=2)\ensuremath{-}5{P}_{1/2}\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}({F}^{\ensuremath{'}}=1)$ transition of $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ atoms. When a linearly polarized laser beam interacts with the EIT medium in the Hanle configuration, selection of the polarization basis after the optical field has already interacted with the atoms was found to significantly affect the intensity-intensity correlation of the two orthogonal polarization components. We compared the second-order correlation functions of two postselected polarization bases (linear and circular), and the polarization basis effect on the second-order correlation functions as a function of the applied magnetic field was numerically calculated using an eight-level atomic model.