Noise Correlation Spectroscopy: A Review

Abstract

The frequency noise of an ordinary diode laser, often a nuisance in spectroscopy, can be used to measure atomic coherence. When atoms are prepared in a coherent superposition of two ground states, each random shift in laser frequency changes how much light they absorb, so the transmitted light carries a record of that coherence. Correlating the intensity fluctuations of two fields, each linking one ground state to a shared excited state, reads this record out, a technique known as noise correlation spectroscopy. The correlation signal is narrower than the transparency window the same fields create and switches sign as their frequency difference is tuned. Its width is set by the rate at which the atoms lose coherence and, over a wide range, does not grow with laser power. Over two decades the method has spread from warm vapors to cold atoms, to multi-field schemes, and to diamond and rare-earth-doped crystals. This review, to the author's knowledge the first, brings together its theory, experiments and applications, and examines its limits, the challenges that remain, and the opportunities that could make it a standard spectroscopic tool.