Chirality-enabled optical dipole potential energy for two-level atoms

TL;DR

This paper explores how a circularly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian laser beam creates a chiral optical dipole potential for two-level atoms, with potential applications in manipulating atomic states using light's angular momentum and polarization.

Contribution

It introduces a novel chiral term in the optical dipole potential energy due to the longitudinal electric field component of the beam, enabling fully chiral atom-light interactions.

Findings

Chiral term in optical dipole potential reverses with beam's winding number or polarization

Proposes a bi-chromatic vortex scheme for fully chiral atom-light interaction

Highlights the role of longitudinal electric field in chiral optical potentials

Abstract

We consider the optical dipole potential energy, which arises from the interaction of a two-level atom with a circularly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian laser beam of small waist. The beam is characterized by the existence of a longitudinal electric field component which is responsible for the appearance of a chiral term in the optical dipole potential energy. This term reverses sign if either the winding number or the wave polarization of the beam reverses sign. We propose a scheme of a bi-chromatic vortex interaction with the two-level atom in which the resulting optical dipole potential is fully chiral.