We have measured mode pushing by the dispersion of a rubidium vapor in a Fabry-Perot cavity and have
shown that the scale factor and sensitivity of a passive cavity can be strongly enhanced by the presence of
such an anomalous dispersion medium. The enhancement is the result of the atom-cavity coupling, which
provides a positive feedback to the cavity response. The cavity sensitivity can also be controlled and tuned
through a pole by a second, optical pumping, beam applied transverse to the cavity. Alternatively, the
sensitivity can be controlled by the introduction of a second counter-propagating input beam that interferes
with the first beam, coherently increasing the cavity absorptance. We show that the pole in the sensitivity
occurs when the sum of the effective group index and an additional cavity delay factor that accounts for mode
reshaping goes to zero, and is an example of an exceptional point, commonly associated with coupled non-
Hermitian Hamiltonian systems. Additionally we show that a normal dispersion feature can decrease the
cavity scale factor and can be generated through velocity selective optical pumping.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.