We demonstrate Purcell-like enhancement of Rayleigh scattering into a single optical mode of a Fabry-Perot resonator for several thermal atomic and molecular gases. The light is detuned by more than an octave, in this case by hundreds of nanometers, from any optical transition, making particle excitation and spontaneous emission negligible. The enhancement of light scattering into the resonator is explained quantitatively as an interference effect of light waves emitted by a classical driven dipole oscillator. Applications of our method include the sensitive, non-destructive in-situ detection of ultracold molecules.
@article{arxiv.0904.4405,
title = {Cavity-Enhanced Rayleigh Scattering},
author = {Michael Motsch and Martin Zeppenfeld and Pepijn W. H. Pinkse and Gerhard Rempe},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0904.4405},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
v2: 13 pages, 7 figures, small changes to the text, extended description of the theoretical model