Coherent control of birefringence

Summary form only given. Summary from only given. An isotropic medium, having atoms with m degenerate sublevels, when subjected to a magnetic field, can induce birefringence in the medium. As a result, the plane of polarization of a probe field rotates. This rotation is due to the fact that the magnetic field creates asymmetry between the susceptibilities /spl chi//spl plusmn/ of the medium corresponding to the /spl sigma//spl plusmn/ component of the probe field. We apply a coherent control field which modifies /spl chi//spl plusmn/. Therefore the rotation of probe polarization, due to magnetic field alone, can be controlled efficiently with the use of the control field. We demonstrate this enhancement of the magneto-optical rotation (MOR) of a linearly polarized light.