Giant Kerr nonlinearities and magneto-optical rotations in a Rydberg-atom gas via double electromagnetically induced transparency

Abstract: We investigate the Kerr and magneto-optical effects for a probe laser field with two orthogonally polarized components, propagating in a cold Rydberg atomic gas with an inverted-Y-type level configuration via double electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Through an approach beyond both mean-field and ground-state approximations, we make detailed calculations on third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities and show that the system possesses giant nonlocal selfand cross-Kerr nonlinearities contributed by Rydberg-Rydberg interaction. The theoretical result of the cross-Kerr nonlinearity obtained for 85Rb atomic gas is very close to the experimental one reported recently. Moreover, we demonstrate that the probe laser field can acquire a very large magnetooptical rotation via the double EIT, which may be used to design atomic magnetometers with high precision. The results presented here are promising not only for the development of nonlocal nonlinear magneto-optics but also for applications in precision measurement and optical information processing and transmission based on Rydberg atomic gases.