Magneto-Optical Stern-Gerlach Effect in Atomic Ensemble

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a magneto-optical Stern-Gerlach effect in atomic ensembles by deriving an effective Schrödinger equation for polarized light, showing how EIT enhances the effect in inhomogeneous magnetic fields.

Contribution

It introduces a microscopic model for the magneto-optical Stern-Gerlach effect of light and shows how EIT can amplify this phenomenon in atomic ensembles.

Findings

Effective Schrödinger equation for polarized light components.

EIT enhances the Stern-Gerlach splitting.

Control field with transverse profile influences the effect.

Abstract

We study the birefringence of the quantized polarized light in a magneto-optically manipulated atomic ensemble as a generalized Stern-Gerlach Effect of light. To explain this engineered birefringence microscopically, we derive an effective Shr\"odinger equation for the spatial motion of two orthogonally polarized components, which behave as a spin with an effective magnetic moment leading to a Stern-Gerlach split in an nonuniform magnetic field. We show that electromagnetic induced transparency (EIT) mechanism can enhance the magneto-optical Stern-Gerlach effect of light in the presence of a control field with a transverse spatial profile and a inhomogeneous magnetic field.