Freezing Light via hot gases
Quantum Physics
2007-05-23 v3
Abstract
We prove that it is possible to freeze a light pulse (i.e., to bring it to a full stop) or even to make its group velocity negative in a coherently driven Doppler broadened atomic medium via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). This remarkable phenomenon of the ultra-slow EIT polariton is based on the spatial dispersion of the refraction index , i.e., its wavenumber dependence, which is due to atomic motion and provides a negative contribution to the group velocity. This is related to, but qualitatively different from, the recently observed light slowing caused by large temporal (frequency) dispersion.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0001058,
title = {Freezing Light via hot gases},
author = {Olga Kocharovskaya and Yuri Rostovtsev and Marlan O. Scully},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0001058},
year = {2007}
}