Imaging the transverse spin density of light via electromagnetically induced transparency

Abstract

When a light beam is strongly laterally confined, its field vector spins in a plane not perpendicular to the propagation direction, leading to the presence of transverse spin angular momentum, which plays a crucial role in the field of chiral quantum optics. The existing techniques to measure the transverse spin density require complex setups and sophisticated time-consuming procedures. Here, we propose a scheme to measure the transverse spin density of an optical field in real time using a multi-level atomic medium. The susceptibility of the medium is spatially modulated by the transverse spin via electromagnetically induced transparency. The distribution of the transverse spin is then extracted by measuring the distributions of the Stokes parameters of another collimated probe field.

4 pages, 3 figures

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