Estimation of temporal separation of slow light pulses in atomic vapors by weak measurement

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how weak measurement techniques can enhance the temporal resolution of slow light pulses in atomic vapors, allowing for better separation of polarization components despite small delays.

Contribution

It introduces a method to improve temporal resolution of slow light pulses using weak measurement and post-selection, applicable to atomic vapors with electromagnetically induced transparency.

Findings

Weak measurement enhances temporal separation of polarization components.

Differential group delay can be effectively increased through post-selection.

Analytical and numerical results confirm the feasibility of the approach.

Abstract

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.