Weak-light vector rogue waves, breathers, and their Stern-Gerlach deflection via electromagnetically induced transparency

We propose a scheme for generating and manipulating vector (or two-component) optical rogue waves using Akhmediev and Kuznetsov-Ma breathers in a coherent atomic system with an M-type five-level configuration via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We show that the propagation velocity of these nonlinear excitations can be reduced to 10⁻⁴ c and their generation power can be lowered to microwatts. We also show that the motion trajectories of the two polarization components in these excitations can be deflected significantly by using a transversal gradient magnetic field, similar to the Stern-Gerlach effect of an atomic beam. We find that the deflection angle can reach to 10⁻⁴ radian within the propagation distance of only several centimeters; at variance with the atomic Stern-Gerlach effect, the deflection angle can be made different for different polarization components and may be actively adjusted in a controllable way. The results obtained may have promising applications, including the precise measurement of gradient magnetic fields.