  We first predict the splitting of a spin degenerate impurity level when this
impurity is irradiated by a circularly polarized laser beam tuned in the
transparency region of a semiconductor. This splitting, which comes from
different exchange processes between the impurity electron and the virtual
pairs coupled to the pump beam, induces a spin precession around the laser beam
axis, which lasts as long as the pump pulse. It can thus be used for ultrafast
spin manipulation. This effect, which has similarities with the exciton optical
Stark effect we studied long ago, is here derived using the concepts we
developed very recently to treat many-body interactions between composite
excitons and which make the physics of this type of effects quite transparent.
They, in particular, allow to easily extend this work to other experimental
situations in which a spin rotates under laser irradiation.
