Scattering of an evanescent light field by a single cesium atom near a nanofiber

We investigate the scattering of an evanescent light field by a single cesium atom outside a nanofiber. We show that the confinement of the field, the presence of the longitudinal field component and the tangential Poynting vector component, the enhancement of spontaneous emission, and the degeneracy of the atomic ground state substantially affect the scattering process. We find that, in the close vicinity of the fiber surface, the transmittance of the field in the stationary regime can be substantially reduced to 48% due to scattering into radiation modes (with the efficiency as high as 44%) and backward guided modes (with the efficiency as high as 8%).