Coherence effects in scattering order expansion of light by atomic clouds

Mohamed Taha Rouabah (1) , Marina Samoylova (2) , Romain Bachelard (3) , Philippe W. Courteille (3) , Robin Kaiser (1) , Nicola Piovella (2)

1 INLN - Institut Non Linéaire de Nice Sophia-Antipolis
2 CNR-INFM and Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia
3 USP - Universidade de São Paulo = University of São Paulo

We interpret cooperative scattering by a collection of cold atoms as a multiple scattering process. Starting from microscopic equations describing the response of $N$ atoms to a probe light beam, we represent the total scattered field as an infinite series of multiple scattering events. As an application of the method, we obtain analytical expressions of the coherent intensity in the double scattering approximation for Gaussian density profiles. In particular, we quantify the contributions of coherent backward and forward scattering.

Mots clés: Multiple Scattering; Double Scattering; Coherent Backscattering; Coherent FOrward Scattering

Domaines: Physique Atomique [physics.atom-ph]; Optique [physics.optics]

Mohamed Taha Rouabah, Marina Samoylova, Romain Bachelard, Philippe W. Courteille, Robin Kaiser, et al.. Coherence effects in scattering order expansion of light by atomic clouds. 2014. ⟨hal-00935058⟩