Trapping of Weak Signal Pulses by Soliton and Trajectory Control in a Coherent Atomic Gas

Abstract

We propose a method for trapping weak signal pulses by soliton and realizing its trajectory control via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The system we consider is a cold, coherent atomic gas with a tripod or multipod level configuration. We show that, due to the giant enhancement of Kerr nonlinearity contributed by EIT, several weak signal pulses can be effectively trapped by a soliton and cotravel stably with ultraslow propagating velocity. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the trajectories of the soliton and the trapped signal pulses can be manipulated by using a Stern-Gerlach gradient magnetic field. As a result, the soliton and the trapped signal pulses display a Stern-Gerlach deflection and both of them can bypass an obstacle together. The results predicted here may be used to design all-optical switching at very low light level.

References in corpus (8)

• Looking at a soliton through the prism of optical supercontinuum
• Theory of radiation trapping by the accelerating solitons in optical fibers
• A Stern-Gerlach experiment for slow light
• Magneto-Optical Stern-Gerlach Effect in Atomic Ensemble
• Stern-Gerlach Effect of Weak-Light Ultraslow Vector Solitons
• Deflection of Slow Light by Magneto-Optically Controlled Atomic Media
• Soliton-radiation trapping in gas-filled photonic crystal fibers
• Stern-Gerlach effect of multi-component ultraslow optical solitons via electromagnetically induced transparency