Investigations of Intensity Correlations of Scattered Light from Laser-Cooled Atoms

Abstract

For a polarized light wave from a chaotic sample g ⁽²⁾(τ) = 1 + S|g ⁽¹⁾(τ)|², where g ⁽²⁾(τ) ≡ 〈I*(t)I(t + τ)〉/〈I(t)〉² is the degree of second order coherence [1]. S depends on the spatial coherence of the light-detection system, and is independent of τ. The degree of first-order coherence g ⁽¹⁾(τ) is simply the Fourier transform of the frequency spectrum I(ω). Thus g ⁽²⁾(τ),the normalized intensity correlation function, gives spectral information about the light produced from the sample.