Light guiding light: Nonlinear refraction in rubidium vapor - art. no. 023820

Recently there has been experimental and theoretical interest in cross-disp ersion effects in rubidium vapor, which allows one beam of light to be guid ed by another. We present theoretical results which account for the complic ations created by the D line hyperfine structure of rubidium as well as the presence of the two major isotopes of rubidium. This allows the complex fr equency dependence of the effects observed in our experiments to be underst ood and lays the foundation for future studies of nonlinear propagation.