A classical approach to coherence narrowing during multiple scattering of resonance radiation (linear polarization case)

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Abstract
The linear polarization properties of resonance radiation which undergoes multiple scattering in an atomic vapour are treated in terms of an alignment tensor which characterizes the distribution of alignment directions for the axes of linearly oscillating dipoles representing the excited-state atoms. A formalism is introduced to treat the evolution of the alignment tensor in a cell with arbitrary rotation symmetry. This, applied to a spherical cell, gives the standard coherence-narrowing results for gamma 0 (appropriate to the decay of excited-state population) and gamma 2 (decay of anisotropy of the linear polarization). Applied to a cell with orthorhombic symmetry, multi-exponential relaxations of both the excited-state population and the anisotropy of the linear polarization are predicted.