Degenerate Zeeman Ground States in the Single-Excitation Regime

TL;DR

This paper develops a new set of equations to simulate dense atomic ensembles, revealing how correlations between degenerate Zeeman sublevels significantly affect photon scattering lineshapes in the single-photon regime.

Contribution

The authors introduce an exact, generalized set of equations for simulating correlations in dense atomic systems within the single-photon limit.

Findings

Correlations between Zeeman sublevels influence photon scattering lineshapes.

The new equations accurately model large atomic ensembles.

Dense systems show non-trivial differences in scattering due to Zeeman correlations.

Abstract

In this work, we demonstrate the importance of considering correlations between degenerate Zeeman sublevels that develop in dense atomic ensembles. In order to do this, we develop a set of equations capable of simulating large numbers of atoms while still incorporating correlations between degenerate Zeeman sublevels. This set of equations is exact in the single-photon limit, and may be interpreted as a generalization of the coupled harmonic oscillator equations typically used the literature. Using these equations, we demonstrate that in sufficiently dense systems, correlations between Zeeman sublevels can cause non-trivial differences in the photon scattering lineshape in arrays and clouds of atoms.