ASYMMETRY OF THE SCATTERING-AMPLITUDE OF ATOMS IN THE FIELD OF SHORT COUNTERPROPAGATING LIGHT-PULSES

Rectification in bipotential scattering of a beam of atoms in the fiel d of short pulses of traveling and standing waves is studied: As a res ult of the coherence induced by the traveling-wave pulse, the momentum transferred to the atomic beam during scattering by the standing wave is nonzero. The magnitude and sign of the asymmetry in the scattering amplitude are oscillatory functions of the duration of the traveling- wave pulse and the detuning of the frequency of the field from atomic resonance. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.