Spatio-spectral vector light created by optical activity in rubidium vapor

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Maduro, Richard Aguiar, Schmidt, Riaan P., Khafaji, Mustafa A. Al, Millar, Craig J. A., Svensson, Sphinx J., Surzhykov, Andrey, Selyem, Adam, Franke-Arnold, Sonja
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Maduro, Richard Aguiar
Schmidt, Riaan P.
Khafaji, Mustafa A. Al
Millar, Craig J. A.
Svensson, Sphinx J.
Surzhykov, Andrey
Selyem, Adam
Franke-Arnold, Sonja
author_facet Maduro, Richard Aguiar
Schmidt, Riaan P.
Khafaji, Mustafa A. Al
Millar, Craig J. A.
Svensson, Sphinx J.
Surzhykov, Andrey
Selyem, Adam
Franke-Arnold, Sonja
contents We demonstrate a pump-probe scheme in which an atomic vapor is optically pumped with circularly polarized light and probed with a vector vortex beam. The pump induces a macroscopic magnetization in the medium, which gives rise to frequency-dependent circular dichroism and birefringence. The vortex probe, characterized by spatially varying polarization, maps this optical activity onto the spatial structure of the transmitted light, thereby generating correlations between the frequency, polarization, and spatial degrees of freedom. Measuring the intensity profile in a suitable polarization component then allows us to perform spatially resolved polarization spectroscopy. We demonstrate the translation of frequency shifts into an image rotation, observing on resonance a rotation in the order of 98 mrad per MHz. These findings may find applications in high-precision spectroscopy, magnetometry, and the generation of hybrid entanglement.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_20398
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Spatio-spectral vector light created by optical activity in rubidium vapor
Maduro, Richard Aguiar
Schmidt, Riaan P.
Khafaji, Mustafa A. Al
Millar, Craig J. A.
Svensson, Sphinx J.
Surzhykov, Andrey
Selyem, Adam
Franke-Arnold, Sonja
Atomic Physics
We demonstrate a pump-probe scheme in which an atomic vapor is optically pumped with circularly polarized light and probed with a vector vortex beam. The pump induces a macroscopic magnetization in the medium, which gives rise to frequency-dependent circular dichroism and birefringence. The vortex probe, characterized by spatially varying polarization, maps this optical activity onto the spatial structure of the transmitted light, thereby generating correlations between the frequency, polarization, and spatial degrees of freedom. Measuring the intensity profile in a suitable polarization component then allows us to perform spatially resolved polarization spectroscopy. We demonstrate the translation of frequency shifts into an image rotation, observing on resonance a rotation in the order of 98 mrad per MHz. These findings may find applications in high-precision spectroscopy, magnetometry, and the generation of hybrid entanglement.
title Spatio-spectral vector light created by optical activity in rubidium vapor
topic Atomic Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20398