Polarization Dependence of Stimulated Rayleigh-Wing Scattering and the Optical-Frequency Kerr Effect

Abstract

A theoretical study of the polarization dependence of stimulated Rayleigh-wing scattering and the optical-frequency Kerr effect has been undertaken. When the incident light is circularly polarized, a striking difference in gain is found for the co- and counter-rotating senses of polarization of the scattered light—the former being suppressed and the latter being exceptionally favored. The analysis begins with a model for the Kerr effect, which involves the alignment of anisotropic molecules in an electric field, but the results can be immediately generalized to any light scattering process of tensor symmetry. The nonlinear problem of the propagation of an intense elliptically polarized light wave in a Kerr-active medium is shown to have a solution in which the vibrational ellipse undergoes self-precession and self-retardation. The stimulated scatterings or instabilities of such a self-precessing and self-retarding light wave are obtained for the backward and forward directions. Birefringence, optical activity, and linear and circular dichroisms are some of the phenomena which result, but the forward direction yields substantially different results from the backward direction because of Stokes-anti-Stokes coupling.