Longitudinal Current Induced by a Plane Electromagnetic Wave in a Single Atom

The change in the polarization state of the atomic response due to the appearence of the longitudinal component, which has been predicted in [A. Andreev, S. Stremoukhov, and O. Shoutova, Europhys. Lett. 120, 14003 (2017)], has been studied. The dependence of the vector properties of the atomic current induced in an atom with unit angular momentum in the ground state on the properties of a two-color laser field with orthogonally polarized components has been analyzed. It has been shown that the variation of the delay time between the frequency components of the laser field makes it possible to efficiently control the polarization of the components of the atomic response field. The effect of the mutual orientation of the electric component of the laser field and the angular momentum of the atom on the longitudinal component of the atomic current and on the polarization properties of the generated radiation has been demonstrated.