Two-photon coherent control of atomic collisions by light with entangled polarization

Abstract

We describe a new method of coherent optical control of internal dynamics of atomic collisions by means of two correlated light beams having entangled polarizations. We show that if excitation of a colliding pair of atoms is by two photons having entangled polarizations, it is possible to redirect the output fragments of the collision into certain channels with a selected type of internal transition symmetry. The transition symmetry is defined in the body-fixed coordinate frame which has random and originally unknown orientation in space.