Breaking of reciprocity and the Pancharatnam-Berry phase for light scattered by a disordered cold atom cloud

Abstract

Collective effects on the light scattered by disordered media such as Anderson localization and coherent backscattering critically depend on the reciprocity between interfering optical paths. In this work, we explore the breaking of reciprocity for the light scattered by a disordered cold atom setup, taking advantage of the non-commutation of optical elements that manipulate the polarization of the interfering paths. This breaking of symmetry manifests itself in the reduction of the fringes contrast as the light scattered by the cloud interferes with that from its mirror image. We provide a geometrical interpretation in terms of the Pancharatnam-Berry phase, which we directly access from the fringes displacement. Our work paves the way toward the manipulation of path reciprocity and interference for light scattered by disordered media.