We have experimentally demonstrated the enhancement of coherent Raman scattering in Rb atomic vapor by exciting atomic coherence with fractional stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. Experimental results are in good agreement with numerical simulations. The results support the possibility of increasing the sensitivity of CARS by preparing atomic or molecular coherence using short pulses.
We have experimentally observed switching between photon-photon correlations (bunching) and anti-correlations (anti-bunching) between two orthogonally polarized laser beams in an EIT configuration in Rb vapor. The bunching and anti-bunching sswitching occurs at a specific magnetic field strength.
Steep dispersion of opposite signs in driven degenerate two-level atomic transitions have been predicted and observed on the D2 line of 87Rb in an optically thin vapor cell. The intensity dependence of the anomalous dispersion has been studied. The maximum observed value of anomalous dispersion [dn/dnu ~= -6x10^{-11}Hz^{-1}] corresponds to anegative group velocity V_g ~= -c/23000.
Motivated by the recent experiment [V.A. Sautenkov, Yu.V. Rostovtsev, and M.O. Scully, Phys. Rev. A 72, 065801 (2005)], we develop a theoretical model in which the field intensity fluctuations resulted from resonant interaction of a dense atomic medium with laser field having finite bandwidth. The intensity-intensity cross correlation between two circular polarized beams can be controlled by the applied external magnetic field. A smooth transition from perfect correlations to anti-correlations (at zero delay time) of the outgoing beams as a function of the magnetic field strength is observed. …
We experimentally study the group time delay for a light pulse propagating through hot Rb vapor in the presence of a strong coupling field in a $Λ$ configuration. We demonstrate that the ultra-slow pulse propagation is transformed into superluminal propagation as the one-photon detuning of the light increases due to the change in the transmission resonance lineshape. Negative group velocity as low as -c/10^6=-80 m/s is recorded. We also find that the advance time in the regime of the superluminal propagation grows linearly with increasing laser field power.
We show that the description of light in terms of Stokes operators in combination with the assumption of Gaussian statistics results in a dramatic simplification of the experimental study of fluctuations in the light transmitted through an atomic vapor: no local oscillator is required, the detected quadrature is easily selected by a wave-plate angle and the complete noise ellipsis reconstruction is obtained via matrix diagonalization. We provide empirical support for the assumption of Gaussian statistics in quasi-resonant light transmitted through an $^{87}$Rb vapor cell and we illustrate the …
We have studied relative-intensity fluctuations for a variable set of orthogonal elliptic polarization components of a linearly polarized laser beam traversing a resonant $^{87}$Rb vapor cell. Significant polarization squeezing at the threshold level (-3dB) required for the implementation of several continuous variables quantum protocols was observed. The extreme simplicity of the setup, based on standard polarization components, makes it particularly convenient for quantum information applications.
We theoretically propose a method to enhance Raman scattering by injecting a seeded light field which is correlated with the initially prepared atomic spin wave. Such a light-atom correlation leads to an interference in the Raman scattering. The interference is sensitive to the relative phase between the seeded light field and initially prepared atomic spin wave. For constructive interference, the Raman scattering is greatly enhanced. Such an enhanced Raman scattering may find applications in quantum information, nonlinear optics and optical metrology due to its simplicity.
In this work, we propose a method to create an atomic frequency comb (AFC) in hot atomic vapors using the piecewise adiabatic passage (PAP) technique. Due to the Doppler effect, the trains of pulses used for PAP give rise to a velocity-dependent transfer of the atomic population from the initial state to the target one, thus forming a velocity comb whose periodicity depends not only on the repetition rate of the applied pulses but also on the specific atomic transitions considered. We highlight the advantages of using this transfer technique with respect to standard methods and discuss, in par…
We report a prolonged coherence time of the collective spin wave of a thermal 87Rb atomic ensemble in a paraffin coated cell. The spin wave is prepared through a stimulated Raman Process. The long coherence time time is achieved by prolonging the lifetime of the spins with paraffin coating and minimize dephasing with optimal experimental configuration. The observation of the long time delayed-stimulated Stokes signal in the writing process suggests the prolonged lifetime of the prepared spins; a direct measurement of the decay of anti-Stokes signal in the reading process shows the coherence ti…
We propose a novel approach to the important fundamental problem of detecting weak optical fields at the few photon level. The ability to detect with high efficiency (>99%), and to distinguish the number of photons in a given time interval is a very challenging technical problem with enormous potential pay-offs in quantum communications and information processing. Our proposal diverges from standard solid-state photo-detector technology by employing an atomic vapor as the active medium, prepared in a specific quantum state using laser radiation. The absorption of a photon will be aided by a dr…
Recently, a novel three-dimensional entangled state called tree-type entanglement, which is likely to have applications for improving quantum communication security, was prepared via adiabatic passage by Song et al. [Phys. Rev. A 93, 062321 (2016)]. Here we propose two schemes for fast generations of tree-type three-dimensional entanglement among three spatially separated atoms via shortcuts to adiabatic passage. With the help of quantum Zeno dynamics, two kinds of different but equivalent methods, Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants and transitionless quantum driving, are applied to construct shortcu…
We present the experimental generation of light with directly observable close-to ideal thermal statistical properties. The thermal light state is prepared using a spontaneous Raman emission in a warm atomic vapor. The photon number statistics is evaluated by both the measurement of second-order correlation function and by the detailed analysis of the corresponding photon number distribution, which certifies the quality of the Bose-Einstein statistics generated by natural physical mechanism. We further demonstrate the extension of the spectral bandwidth of the generated light to hundreds of MH…
We derive analytic solution for pulsed frequency conversion based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) or maximum coherence in resonant atomic vapors. In particular drive-field and coherence depletion are taken into account. The solutions are obtained with the help of an Hamiltonian approach which in the adiabatic limit allows to reduce the full set of Maxwell-Bloch equations to simple canonical equations of Hamiltonian mechanics for the field variables. Adiabatic integrals of motion can be obtained and general expressions for the spatio-temporal evolution of field intensities der…
We propose a conditional scheme to generate entangled two-photons generalized binomial states inside two separate single-mode high-Q cavities. This scheme requires that the two cavities are initially prepared in entangled one-photon generalized binomial states and exploits the passage of two appropriately prepared two-level atoms one in each cavity. The measurement of the ground state of both atoms is finally required when they exit the cavities. We also give a brief evaluation of the experimental feasibility of the scheme.
We discuss the propagation of laser radiation through a medium of quantum prepared Λ-type atoms in order to enhance the insight into the physics of QS-PT generator suggested in Phys. Rev. A 80, 035801 (2009). We obtain analytical results which give a qualitatively corerct description of the outcoming series of ultrashort optical pulses and show that for the case of alkali vapor medium QS-PT generation may be implemented under ordinary experimental conditions.
We consider a method of sub-wavelength superlocalization and patterning of atomic matter waves via a two dimensional stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (2D STIRAP) process. An atom initially prepared in its ground level interacts with a doughnut-shaped optical vortex pump beam and a traveling wave Stokes laser beam with a constant (top-hat) intensity profile in space. The beams are sent in a counter-intuitive temporal sequence, in which the Stokes pulse precedes the pump pulse. The atoms interacting with both the traveling wave and the vortex beam are transferred to a final state through the 2…
We develop a scheme for deterministic generation of an entangled state between two atoms on different Rydberg states via a chirped adiabatic passage, which directly connects the initial ground and target entangled states and also does not request the normally needed blockade effect. The occupancy of intermediate states suffers from a strong reduction via two pulses with proper time-dependent detunings and the electromagnetically induced transparency condition. By solving the analytical expressions of eigenvalues and eigenstates of a two-atom system, we investigate the optimal parameters for gu…
Four-wave mixing in resonant atomic vapors based on maximum coherence induced by Stark-chirped rapid adiabatic passage (SCRAP) is investigated theoretically. We show the advantages of a coupling scheme involving maximum coherence and demonstrate how a large atomic coherence between a ground and an highly excited state can be prepared by SCRAP. Full analytic solutions of the field propagation problem taking into account pump field depletion are derived. The solutions are obtained with the help of an Hamiltonian approach which in the adiabatic limit permits to reduce the full set of Maxwell-Bloc…
We demonstrate the efficient generation of Raman sidebands in a medium coherently prepared in a dark state by continuous-wave low-intensity laser radiation. Our experiment is performed in sodium vapor excited in $Λ$ configuration on the D$_{1}$ line by two laser fields of resonant frequencies $ω_{1}$ and $ω_{2}$, and probed by a third field $% ω_{3}$. First-order sidebands for frequencies $ω_{1}$, $ω_{2}$ and up to the third-order sidebands for frequency $ω_{3}$ are observed. The generation starts at a power as low as 10 microwatt for each input field. Dependencies of the intensities of both i…
It is shown theoretically and experimentally that passage of a laser beam through particular conventional Ronchi gratings prepares the beam in an altered state that violates quantum duality. The violation is characterized by a readily measured net transfer of energy between the prepared beam and an unmodified beam from a similar, independent laser. Notably, the experiment is conducted with the beams at macroscopic power levels where measurability of the duality-violating transfer is vastly improved over that of the discrete photon regime. These results are consistent with other recently report…
We show that coherent multiple light scattering, or diffuse light propagation, in a disordered atomic medium, prepared at ultra-low temperatures, can be be effectively delayed in the presence of a strong control field initiating a stimulated Raman process. On a relatively short time scale, when the atomic system can preserve its configuration and effects of atomic motion can be ignored, the scattered signal pulse, diffusely propagating via multiple coherent scattering through the medium, can be stored in the spin subsystem through its stimulated Raman-type conversion into spin coherence. We de…
We measured the spin noise spectroscopy (SNS) of rubidium atomic ensemble with two different atomic vapor cells (filled with the buffer gases or coated with paraffin film on the inner wall), and demonstrated the enhancement of signal to noise ratio (SNR) by using of the polarization squeezed state (PSS) of 795 nm light field with Stokes operator S2 squeezed. PSS is prepared by locking the relative phase between the squeezed vacuum state of light obtained by a sub-threshold optical parametric oscillator and the orthogonal polarized local oscillator beam by means of the quantum noise lock. Under…
