Quadrupole absorption rate for atoms in circularly-polarized optical vortices

Abstract

Twisted light beams, or optical vortices, have been used to drive the circular motion of microscopic particles in optical tweezers and have been shown to generate vortices in quantum gases. Recent studies have established that electric quadrupole interactions can mediate an orbital angular momentum exchange between twisted light and the electronic degrees of freedom of atoms. Here we consider a quadrupole atomic transition mediated by a circularly-polarized optical vortex. We evaluate the transfer rate of the optical angular momentum to a Cs atom involving the 6 2 S 1/2 → 5 2 D 5/2 quadrupole transition and explain how the polarization state and the topological charge of the vortex beam determine the selection rules.