%0 Journal Article
%T Atomic Kapitza-Dirac effect with quadrupole transitions
%A Pedro Sancho
%J Physics
%D 2013
%I arXiv
%X Interactions between atoms and light fields are usually described in the electric-dipole approximation. We show that electric-quadrupole terms are important in the Kapitza-Dirac arrangement for light gratings on resonance with a quadrupole atomic transition. We derive the diffraction patterns, which in some cases are experimentally verifiable with the same techniques used with dipole transitions.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0998v1