Photon Hall scattering from alkaline-earth-like atoms and alkali-like ions

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of observing a magneto-transverse scattering of photons from alkaline-earth-like atoms as well as alkali-like ions and provide orders of magnitude. The transverse magneto-scattering is physically induced by the interference between two possible quantum transitions of an outer electron in a S state, one dispersive electric-dipole transition to a P orbital state and a second resonant electric-quadrupole transition to a D orbital state. In contrast with previous mechanisms proposed for such an atomic photonic Hall effect, no real photons are scattered by the electric-dipole allowed transition, which increases the ratio of Hall current to background photons significantly. The main experimental challenge is to overcome the small detection threshold, with only 10?5 photons scattered per atom per second. © 2017, The Author(s).