Abstract
Radiation pressure due to the interaction between a probe light and cold atoms is investigated in a standard cesium magneto-optical trap. The radiation pressure alters the absorption spectroscopy of cold atoms, leading to line shapes and linewidths after resonant interaction that are different for positive and negative probe chirps. The difference is attributed to the radiation pressure of the probe laser, due to which atoms become accelerated at the resonance. The effect of the radiation pressure is also seen in electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) involving an excited Rydberg level. The density matrix equation accounting for the radiation pressure is used to simulate the experiments. The simulations agree well with the measurements both for absorption and EIT spectra. We find that the effect of the radiation pressure is reduced at low probe intensities, and can be neglected when the probe intensity is smaller than Isat/2 .
Highlights
Radiation pressure results from the interaction between light and atoms has been predicated by Maxwell [1] and Bartoli [2]
We investigate the effect of the radiation pressure on absorption and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) spectra obtained with cold atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)
The probe spectra show different behavior for positive and negative probe frequency chirps, when the probe intensity is larger than Isat
Summary
Radiation pressure results from the interaction between light and atoms has been predicated by Maxwell [1] and Bartoli [2]. The first part is radiation pressure, pointing in the direction of the phase gradient of the laser wave, which is used to manipulate the neutral atoms; the second one, related to the intensity gradient of the laser, is called dipole force, which is used to realize optical dipole traps. An elastic wave in an elastic solid induced with light pressure has been directly measured [21], which clearly indicates the transfer of momentum due to light recoil from the interaction between the light with the surface of the elastic solid. The broadening of the spectra limits atom-based measurements and applications, such as ultrahighresolution spectroscopy
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