Angular resolution of orthogonal polarizations using inhomogeneous control field

The control of propagation direction of light by another light through their interaction with the medium has created a new avenue of research, with a special focus on the beam deflection in a homogeneous medium subjected to external fields. The key requirement for such a deflection is the spatial modulation of the refractive index of the medium induced by an inhomogeneous field. Beam deflection has been previously studied inside a medium, where electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) or active Raman gain (ARG) [C. Zhu {\it et. al.\/}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 88}, 013841 (2013)] plays the crucial role. Here, we present a theoretical analysis to demonstrate the polarization-dependent light deflection of a weak probe field in a weakly birefringent medium in tripod configuration. We show that by changing the incidence angle of a control field as well as its transverse intensity profile, one can induce quite large ($\sim 100$ mrad) angular divergence to different polarization components of the probe field. We identify that it is the coherent population oscillation (CPO) [S. Kumar {\it et. al.\/}, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 88}, 023852 (2013)] that leads to negligible absorption of the polarization components, contrary to the proposals which rely upon EIT and ARG.