Electric Field Induced Symmetry Breaking of Angular Momentum Distribution in Atoms

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of alignment to orientation conversion in the 7D_3/2 and 9D_3/2 states of Cs in the presence of an external dc electric field, and without the influence of magnetic fields or atomic collisions. Initial alignment of angular momentum states was created by two-step excitation with linearly polarized laser radiation. The appearance of transverse orientation of angular momentum was confirmed by the observation of circularly polarized light. We present experimentally measured signals and compare them with the results of a detailed theoretical model based on the optical Bloch equations.

arXiv comment4 pages with 4 figures (6 postscript files), submitted to Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Violations of fundamental symmetries in atoms and tests of unification theories of elementary particles
• Validity of Rate Equations for Zeeman Coherences for Analysis of Nonlinear Interaction of Atoms with Laser Radiation
• Angular momentum spatial distribution symmetry breaking in Rb by an external magnetic field

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Light-induced polarization effects in atoms with partially resolved hyperfine structure and applications to absorption, fluorescence, and nonlinear magneto-optical rotation
• Orientation-to-alignment conversion and spin squeezing
• Enhancement of level-crossing resonances in rubidium atoms by frequency control of the exciting radiation field
• Generation of atomic spin orientation with a linearly polarised beam in room-temperature alkali-metal vapour
• Angular momentum alignment-to-orientation conversion in the ground state of Rb atoms at room temperature
• Isolating Pure Quadratic Zeeman Splitting