Transverse drag of slow light in moving atomic vapor

Yakov Solomons, Chitram Banerjee, Slava Smartsev, Jonathan Friedman, David Eger, Ofer Firstenberg, Nir Davidson

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

Abstract

The Fresnel-Fizeau effect of transverse drag, in which the trajectory of a light beam changes due to transverse motion of the optical medium, is usually extremely small and hard to detect. We observe transverse drag in a moving hot-vapor cell, utilizing slow light due to electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). The drag effect is enhanced by a factor 400,000, corresponding to the ratio between the light speed in vacuum and the group velocity under the EIT conditions. We study the contribution of the thermal atomic motion, which is much faster than the mean medium velocity, and identify the regime where its effect on the transverse drag is negligible.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3431-3434
Number of pages4
JournalOptics Letters
Volume45
Issue number13
Early online date17 Jun 2020
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jul 2020

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