White-light-induced drift of three-level atoms

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Abstract
It is shown that non-laser radiation with a broad-band spectrum can induce a drift of optically absorbing multi-level atoms through buffer gas and separate them. It is not necessary to have a mixture of absorbing species to form an asymmetry in the initially flat light spectrum with respect to the atomic resonances. The spectrum asymmetry required for a velocity-selective excitation of the atoms may be formed in the propagating light due to the difference in absorption indexes at nearby transitions of the same species. A set of kinetic equations for coupled light and particles is presented. Numerical analysis of the problem and estimations are done for several typical cases.