Control with EIT: High energy charged particle detection

TL;DR

This paper explores using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) to detect high-energy charged particles by analyzing changes in optical responses and probe pulse chirp spectra in atomic media.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum control protocol for EIT-based detection of high-energy particles through perturbation-induced changes in probe pulse chirp spectra.

Findings

Derived expressions for group velocity and GVD in 3-level EIT systems.

Identified optimal parameters for maximizing perturbation detection.

Demonstrated the trapping of Cherenkov polaritons for enhanced sensitivity.

Abstract

The strong non-linear optical response of atomic systems in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) states is considered as a means to detect the presence of small perturbations to steady states. For the 3-level system, expressions for the group velocity and group velocity dispersion (GVD) were derived and a quantum control protocol was established to account for the change in the chirp spectrum of a probe pulse when the steady state was perturbed. This was applied to the propagation of slow Cherenkov polaritons in the medium due to the passage of a train of high-energy charged particles (high energy particles). The choice of the initial steady state with focus on the slow light condition and strong narrowly confined dispersion, equated to the continuous trapping of Cherenkov polaritons in the medium along a narrow group cone, allowing for non-trivial fields to accumulate. Considering another medium prepared for the detection of the radiation, sweeping of the control field and detuning parameters in the field-atom parameter space showed the presence of optimal regions to maximize the first order perturbation in the coherences creating changes in the optical responses that modify the chirp spectra of probe pulses.