Polarization effects in recoil-induced resonances

A model of the formation of recoil-induced resonances accompanying the interaction of an ensemble of slow atoms with a pair of plane light waves with different polarizations is constructed in the framework of the semiclassical approach to the description of the angular momentum of atoms. The approach used reduces the problem to the description of the resonances in the effective model of atoms with nondegenerate levels. The resonance amplitudes exhibit a strong dependence on the type of model used (with or without the inclusion of the degeneration of levels) and on the polarization of light waves. At the same time, the shape of the resonances that is normalized to unit amplitude from which the velocity distribution of atoms can be reconstructed is much less sensitive to the model type.