Related papers: Chasing 'Slow Light'
Transport processes underpin a multitude of phenomena, ranging from the propagation of atoms on lattices, to the mobility patterns of microorganisms and earthquakes, to name a few. The dynamics of these processes is very rich and key to…
Optical limiters are designed to transmit low intensity light, while blocking the light with excessively high intensity. A typical passive limiter absorbs excessive electromagnetic energy, which can cause its overheating and destruction. We…
This paper presents a theoretical study of the light-induced shift of the coherent population trapping resonance. An analytical model is proposed that describes the interaction of two radiation components with an atomic system using a…
Reabsorption, the multiple scattering of spontaneously emitted photons in optically thick gases, is a major limitation to efficient optical pumping and laser cooling in ultracold gases. We report mitigation of reabsorption using spatial and…
Theoretical and experimental results on optical ring dark solitary waves are presented, emphasizing the interplay between initial dark beam contrast, phase-shift magnitude, background-beam intensity and saturation of the nonlinearity are…
A new type of resonant light absorption by a small particle (nanocluster) is reported. The problem cannot be described within the commonly used dipole scattering approximation and should be studied with methods based upon the exact Mie…
We present analytical and numerical study of photonic lattice with short- and long-range harmonic modulations of the refractive index. Such structures can be prepared experimentally with holographic photolithography. In the spectral region…
Pulse propagation is considered in an inhomogeneously broadened medium of three-level atoms in a V-configuration, dressed by a counter-propagating pump pulse. A significant signal slowdown is demonstrated in this of the three frequency…
Relativistic length contraction is revisited and a simple but new thought experiment is proposed in which an apparent asymmetric situation is developed between two different inertial frames regarding detection of light that comes from a…
Light propagation in optical waveguides with periodically modulated index of refraction and alternating gain and loss are investigated for linear and nonlinear systems. Based on a multiscale perturbation analysis, it is shown that for many…
A recent proposal to explore vacuum electrodynamics using the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic pulse through an ambient constant magnetic field is examined. It is argued that the proposal should be modified so that the background…
Coupling light to ensembles of strongly interacting particles has emerged as a promising route toward achieving few photon nonlinearities. One specific way to implement this kind of nonlinearity is to interface light with highly excited…
The possibility of making an optically large (many wavelengths in diameter) object appear invisible has been a subject of many recent studies. Exact invisibility scenarios for large (relative to the wavelength) objects involve…
Many complex systems are representable as macroscopic set of elements which interact by simple rules. The complex macroscopically relevant phenomena are then the result of the generic emergence of a space-time multi-scale dynamics. Critical…
An exact formulation of the propagation of a monochromatic wave packet impinging upon a transparent, homogeneous, isotropic and parallel slab at oblique incidence is presented. Approximate formulas are derived for low divergence Gaussian…
Light diffusion is usually associated with thick, opaque media. Indeed, multiple scattering is necessary for the onset of the diffusive regime and such condition is generally not met in almost transparent media. Nonetheless, at long enough…
Composite dark matter (DM) comprised of electrically charged constituents can interact with the electromagnetic field via the particle's dipole moment. This interaction results in a dispersive optical index of refraction for the DM medium.…
Results are reported from a search for a class of composite dark matter models with feeble, long-range interactions with normal matter. We search for impulses arising from passing dark matter particles by monitoring the mechanical motion of…
We present a theoretical and experimental analysis of transient optical properties of a dense cold atomic gas. After the rapid extinction of a weak coherent driving field (mean photon number $\sim 1.5$), a transient `flash' is observed.…
Weak gravitational lensing observations probe the spectrum and evolution of density fluctuations and the cosmological parameters which govern them but are currently limited to small fields and subject to selection biases. We show how the…