1995/06/27 by B. A. van Tiggelen, Bart A. van Tiggelen, R. Maynard +5
Engineering · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Condensed Matter (cond-mat) #FOS: Physical sciences #Optical Imaging and Spectroscopy Techniques #Optical Polarization and Ellipsometry #Random lasers and scattering media #cond-mat
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/9506126
44 pages PostScript, 9 figures
arxiv created 1995/06/27 · openalex publication_date 1995/06/27 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We present a microscopic theory for multiple light scattering occurring in inhomogeneous 3D media subject to an external magnetic field. Magneto-optical effects (the Faraday effect and the Cotton-Mouton effect) occur inside the small inhomogeneities. We thereby take into account the spatial anisotropy, time-reversal-symmetry breaking and birefringence caused by the magnetic field, and discuss the consequences for the diffusion tensor and the polarization characteristics of the diffuse light. We will frequently compare our findings to a similar phenomenon in dilute polyatomic gases: the Beenakker-Senftleben effect. Coherent Backscattering and the field-field correlator < Ei(\bf B) Ej(\bf 0) > are addressed, which have both been obtained experimentally by the group of Maret \em etal.. All modifications in transport theory due to the magnetic field exhibit a rather sensitive dependence on the scattering phase shift of the individual scatterers.