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Probing the isolated vector magnetic field of structured laser beams by atoms

R. P. Schmidt1,2,*, S. Martín-Domene3,4, A. A. Peshkov1,2, C. Hernández-García3,4, and A. Surzhykov1,2,5

  • *Contact author: riaan.schmidt@ptb.de
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Phys. Rev. A 113, 013105 – Published 2 January, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/b3zw-mwrn

Abstract

Electric and magnetic fields are inherently coupled in an electromagnetic wave. However, structured light beams enable their spatial separation. In particular, azimuthally polarized laser beams exhibit a localized magnetic field on-axis without the electric counterpart. A recent study by Martín-Domene et al. [S. Martín-Domene et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 124, 211101 (2024)] has shown that combining these beams enables the generation of locally isolated magnetic fields with a controllable direction and phase. In the present paper, we propose a method to probe and characterize such magnetic fields by studying their interaction with a single trapped atom. In order to theoretically investigate magnetic sublevel populations and their dependence on the relative orientation and phase—i.e., the polarization state—of the isolated magnetic field, we use a time-dependent density-matrix method based on the Liouville–von Neumann equation. As illustrative cases, we consider the 2s22p2P03−2s22p2P13, 1s22s2S01−1s22s2pP23, and 2s22pP1/22−2s22pP3/22 transitions in Ca14+40, Be10, and Ar13+38, respectively. Our results indicate that monitoring atomic populations serves as an effective tool for probing isolated vector magnetic fields, which opens avenues for studying laser-induced processes in atomic systems where electric-field suppression is critical.

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Phys. Rev. A 113, 013105– Published 2 January, 2026
  • Received 3 September 2025
  • Accepted 18 November 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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