Continuous weak measurement and nonlinear dynamics in a cold spin ensemble

A weak continuous quantum measurement of an atomic spin ensemble can be implemented via Faraday rotation of an off-resonance probe beam, and may be used to create and probe nonclassical spin states and dynamics. We show that the probe light shift leads to nonlinearity in the spin dynamics and limits the useful Faraday measurement window. Removing the nonlinearity allows a nonperturbing measurement on the much longer time scale set by decoherence. The nonlinear spin Hamiltonian is of interest for studies of quantum chaos and real-time quantum state estimation.