Light Transport in Cold Atoms and Thermal Decoherence

2006/03/17 by G. Labeyrie, Guillaume Labeyrie, Dominique Delande +2 · 4 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Random lasers and scattering media #Terahertz technology and applications #cond-mat.other #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.97.013004

published as Physical Review Letters 97 (07/07/2006) 013004 · 4 pages - submitted to Physical Review Letters

arxiv created 2006/03/17 · openalex publication_date 2006/07/07 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We use the coherent backscattering interference effect to investigate experimentally and theoretically how coherent transport of light inside a cold atomic vapor is affected by the residual motion of atomic scatterers. As the temperature of the atomic cloud increases, the interference contrast decreases dramatically. This emphasizes the role of motion-induced decoherence for resonant scatterers even in the sub-Doppler regime of temperature. We derive analytical expressions for the corresponding coherence time.

Citations

• Thermal breakdown of coherent backscattering: A case study of quantum duality
• Coherent backscattering of light by cold atoms: Theory meets experiment

Cited by

• Coherent Backscattering of Bose-Einstein Condensates in Two-Dimensional Disorder Potentials
• Coherent backscattering of light from saturated atoms
• Mesoscopic coherence in light scattering from cold, optically dense and disordered atomic systems
• THE DEPENDENT SCATTERING EFFECT ON RADIATIVE PROPERTIES OF MICRO/NANOSCALE DISCRETE DISORDERED MEDIA