Optical Hanle effect in fields of arbitrary strength and bandwidth

Abstract

A quantum-statistical theory of optical Hanle effect is developed for arbitrary intensities and bandwidths of the pump field. The excited- and ground-state level shifts, caused by another light field with appropriate polarization, are directly included in the theory by using the method of time averaging. The laser fluctuations are taken into account exactly by using the phase-diffusion model of the pump laser. The analytical and numerical results for the fluorescence signals are presented for a variety of excitations. Our results in the limiting case reduce to those of Kaftandjian, Klein, and Hanle. Finally, the case of a very broadband excitation under saturation conditions is analyzed and the results for signals in various directions and the polarizations are obtained.