Polarization properties of ‘slow’ light

Abstract

The propagation of the arbitrarily polarized pulse of the weak probe field through the resonant medium of Λ-type three-level atoms with degenerate levels adiabatically driven by the coherent coupling field is considered. It is shown that such pulse is decomposed in the medium into two orthogonally polarized dark-state polaritons propagating with different group velocities. The expressions for the polarizations and group velocities of these two polaritons are obtained. The dependence of these polarizations and group velocities on the values of the angular momenta of resonant levels, on the polarization of the coupling field and on the initial atomic state is studied.