Coherent transfer of orbital angular momentum from an atomic system to a light field

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Abstract
We generated orbital angular momentum in atoms with a spin degree of freedom and coherently transferred it to a light field, which resulted in the generation of a Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beam. In this method, atoms obtain orbital angular momentum through Larmor precession around the quadrupole field. Successive operations of quadrupole and homogeneous magnetic fields lead to a change of sign in the LG beam or even generation of superposition states of the LG beam with different indexes in real time. Possible applications to control orbital angular momentum of arbitrary photons are also discussed.