Quantum Squeezing of Slow-Light Solitons

Abstract

We investigate the quantum squeezing of slow-light solitons generated in a Λ-shaped three-level atomic system working under condition of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Starting from the Heisenberg-Langevin and Maxwell equations governing the quantum dynamics of atoms and probe laser field, we derive a quantum nonlinear Schrödinger equation controlling the evolution of the probe-field envelope. By using a direct perturbation approach to diagonalize the effective Hamiltonian (where the atomic variables have been eliminated), we carry out a detailed calculation on the quantum fluctuations of a slow-light soliton, expanded as a superposition of the complete and orthonormalized set of eigenfunctions obtained by solving the Bogoliubov-de Gennes (BdG) equations describing the quantum fluctuations. We show that due to the giant Kerr nonlinearity contributed from the EIT effect, significant quantum squeezing of the slow-light soliton can be realized within a short propagation distance. The results reported here are helpful for understanding the quantum property of slow-light solitons and for realizing light squeezing via EIT in cold atomic gases experimentally.