Angular Momentum of Atoms

Sonja Franke‐Arnold

Any coherent interaction of light and atoms needs to conserve energy, linear momentum and angular momentum. What happens to an atom's angular momentum if it encounters light that carries orbital angular momentum (OAM)? This is a particularly intriguing question as the angular momentum of atoms is quantized, incorporating the intrinsic spin angular momentum of the individual electrons as well as the OAM associated with their spatial distribution. In addition, a mechanical angular momentum can arise from the rotation of the entire atom, which for very cold atoms is also quantized. Atoms therefore allow us to probe and access the quantum properties of light's OAM, aiding our fundamental understanding of light-matter interactions, and moreover, allowing us to construct OAM-based applications, including quantum memories, frequency converters for shaped light and OAM-based sensors.This article is part of the themed issue 'Optical orbital angular momentum'.

Jian Jing, Qiu-Yue Zhang, Qing Wang +2 more

Inspired by the electromagnetic duality, we propose an approach to realize the fractional angular momentum by using a cold atom which possesses a permanent magnetic dipole momentum. This atom interacts with two electric fields and is trapped by a harmonic potential which enable the motion of the atom to be planar and rotationally symmetric. We show that eigenvalues of the canonical angular momentum of the cold atom can take fractional values when the atom is cooled down to its lowest kinetic energy level. The fractional part of canonical angular momentum is dual to that of the fractional angular momenta realized by using a charged particle. Another approach of getting the fractional angular momentum is also presented. The differences between these two approaches are investigated.

P. R. Berman, Zeyuan Wang, A. Kuzmich

Two-atom superradiance is studied for atoms having a J=0 ground state and a J=1 excited state. The atoms lie on the x-axis and are excited by a σ_{+}-polarized laser pulse propagating in the z-direction. We use two, complementary approaches to obtain the final angular momentum in the field, a source-field approach and a Schrodinger picture approach. Both approaches give identical answers, but it is necessary to include terms in both calculations that, at first glance, might not be expected to contribute. We show that, owing to an exchange between a state in which atom 1 is in its m=1 excited state and atom 2 is in its ground state to one in which atom 2 is in its m=-1 excited state and atom 1 in its ground state, the final angular momentum in the field is not necessarily equal to the initial angular momentum in the two-atom system. The missing angular momentum appears as orbital angular momentum of the two atoms.

Galina A. Nemova