Doppler spectroscopy of arbitrarily polarized light in rubidium

We present an experimental and theoretical study of the transmission of an arbitrarily polarized laser beam for a Doppler broadened rubidium vapor cell. As the polarization of the probe beam was varied from linear to circular, the transmission for the transitions F-g=3 -> F-e=2,3,4 of the D-2 line of Rb-85 atoms was measured and compared with calculated results. In the calculation, the time-dependent absorption coefficient, calculated numerically from the density-matrix equation, was averaged over the velocity distribution and various transit time crossing the laser beam. The final transmission was obtained by considering the Gaussian profile of the laser beam. We found good agreement between experimental and calculated results. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.