No Arabic abstract
We analyze the nonlinear dynamics of atomic dark states in Lambda configuration that interact with light at exact resonance. We found a generalization of shape-preserving pulses [R. Grobe, F. T. Hioe, and J. H. Eberly, Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 3183 (1994)] and show that the condition for adiabaticity of the atomic dynamics is never violated, as long as spontaneous emission is negligible.
We present experimental evidence that light storage, i.e. the controlled release of a light pulse by an atomic sample dependent on the past presence of a writing pulse, is not restricted to small group velocity media but can also occur in a negative group velocity medium. A simple physical picture applicable to both cases and previous light storage experiments is discussed.
We show how two circular polarization components of a linearly polarized pulse, propagating through a coherently driven dilute atomic vapor, can be well resolved in time domain by weak measurement. Slower group velocity of one of the components due to electromagnetically induced transparency leads to a differential group delay between the two components. For low number density, this delay may not be large enough to temporally resolve the two components. We show how this can be enhanced in terms of mean time of arrival of the output pulse through a post-selected polarizer. We demonstrate the idea with all the analytical and numerical results, with a specific example of alkali atoms.
We present a preliminary experimental study of the dependence on optical depth of slow and stored light pulses in Rb vapor. In particular, we characterize the efficiency of slow and stored light as a function of Rb density; pulse duration, delay and storage time; and control field intensity. Experimental results are in good qualitative agreement with theoretical calculations based on a simplified three-level model at moderate densities.
Slow light based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency is of great interest due to its applications in low-light-level nonlinear optics and quantum information manipulation. The previous experiments all dealt with the single-component slow light. Here we report the experimental demonstration of two-component or spinor slow light using a double tripod atom-light coupling scheme. The scheme involves three atomic ground states coupled to two excited states by six light fields. The oscillation due to the interaction between the two components was observed. Based on the stored light, our data showed that the double tripod scheme behaves like the two outcomes of an interferometer enabling precision measurements of frequency detuning. We experimentally demonstrated a possible application of the double tripod scheme as quantum memory/rotator for the two-color qubit. Our study also suggests that the spinor slow light is a better method than a widely-used scheme in the nonlinear frequency conversion.
We demonstrate that Aharonov-Albert-Vaidman (AAV) weak values have a direct relationship with the response function of a system, and have a much wider range of applicability in both the classical and quantum domains than previously thought. Using this idea, we have built an optical system, based on a birefringent photonic crystal, with an infinite number of weak values. In this system, the propagation speed of a polarized light pulse displays both superluminal and slow light behavior with a sharp transition between the two regimes. We show that this systems response possesses two-dimensional, vortex-antivortex phase singularities. Important consequences for optical signal processing are discussed.