Darmstadt 2008 – wissenschaftliches Programm

Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Downloads | Hilfe

Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 57: Quanteneffekte (QED / Lichtstreuung)

Q 57.4: Vortrag

Freitag, 14. März 2008, 11:45–12:00, 2D

Slow light in inhomogeneous and transverse magnetic fields — •Leon Karpa and Martin Weitz — Institut für Angewandte Physik der Universität Bonn, Wegelerstr. 8, 53115 Bonn, Germany

Electromagnetically induced transparency allows for light transmission through dense atomic media by means of quantum interference of absorption amplitudes[1]. Media exhibiting electromagnetically induced transparency have interesting properties, such as very slow group velocities[2]. Associated with the slow light propagation are quasiparticles, so-called dark polaritons, which are mixtures of a photonic and an atomic contribution[3]. We have carried out experiments, where circularily polarized light traversing a rubidium gas cell under EIT conditions is deflected by an inhomogeneous magnetic field. The obtained results can be described in terms of dark state polaritons having a nonzero effective magnetic moment[4]. In subsequent experiments, electromagnetically induced transparency and slow light have also been observed with a transverse magnetic field orientation. Such a configuration can be used in further studies of the quasiparticle nature of slow light, as in a planned Aharonov-Casher experiment.

[1] See e.g.: E. Arimondo, Prog. Opt. 35, 257 (1996).

[2] See e.g.: L. V. Hau et al. Nature (London) 397, 594 (1999).

[3] M. Fleischhauer and M. D. Lukin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5094 (2000).

[4] L. Karpa and M. Weitz, Nature Physics 2, 332 (2006).