Spatio-spectral vector light created by optical activity in rubidium vapor
Abstract
We show that optical activity in atomic media can generate multidimensional correlations in frequency, polarization and spatial degrees of freedom, allowing us to observe frequency shifts as image rotations. Specifically, we demonstrate a pump-probe scheme, where optical pumping with circularly polarized light generates macroscopic magnetization in an atomic vapor, associated with frequency-dependent circular dichroism and birefringence. A vortex probe beam, characterized by spatially varying polarization, maps this optical activity onto the spatial structure of the transmitted light. Measuring the intensity profile in a suitable polarization component then allows us to perform spatially resolved polarization spectroscopy. On resonance we observe a rotation with a slope in the order of 98 mrad per MHz. These findings may find applications in image-based laser-locking, high-precision spectroscopy, magnetometry, and the generation of hybrid entanglement.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{maduro2026spatiospectral,
title = {{Spatio-spectral vector light created by optical activity in rubidium vapor}},
author = {Richard Aguiar Maduro and Riaan P. Schmidt and Mustafa A. Al Khafaji and Craig J. A. Millar and Sphinx J. Svensson and Andrey Surzhykov and Adam Selyem and Sonja Franke-Arnold},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2605.20398},
eprint = {2605.20398},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20398},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Spatio-spectral vector light created by optical activity in rubidium vapor
AU - Richard Aguiar Maduro
AU - Riaan P. Schmidt
AU - Mustafa A. Al Khafaji
AU - Craig J. A. Millar
AU - Sphinx J. Svensson
AU - Andrey Surzhykov
AU - Adam Selyem
AU - Sonja Franke-Arnold
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/28
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2605.20398
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.20398
AB - We show that optical activity in atomic media can generate multidimensional correlations in frequency, polarization and spatial degrees of freedom, allowing us to observe frequency shifts as image rotations. Specifically, we demonstrate a pump-probe scheme, where optical pumping with circularly polarized light generates macroscopic magnetization in an atomic vapor, associated with frequency-dependent circular dichroism and birefringence. A vortex probe beam, characterized by spatially varying polarization, maps this optical activity onto the spatial structure of the transmitted light. Measuring the intensity profile in a suitable polarization component then allows us to perform spatially resolved polarization spectroscopy. On resonance we observe a rotation with a slope in the order of 98 mrad per MHz. These findings may find applications in image-based laser-locking, high-precision spectroscopy, magnetometry, and the generation of hybrid entanglement.
ER -