THE STOCHASTIC-REALIZATION SHIFT

We have found that an atom interacting with a stochastic field suffers a shift of its resonance frequency which is not due to any ac Stark or Bloch-Siegert effect, but arises solely from the realization of random atomic dynamics. We refer to this phenomenon as a Stochastic Realization Shift. The shift depends in part on a correlation between amplitude and frequency fluctuations, and should be observable in precision spectroscopy experiments employing diode lasers. To demonstrate the significance of the phenomenon in studies of atomic interactions with stochastic fields, we compare the Stochastic Realization Shift with a two-photon ac Stark shift. The computational results indicate that the Stochastic Realization Shift can sometimes be orders of magnitude larger than an atomic energy level shift of interest.