Two-pulse propagation in media with quantum-mixed ground states

Journal Article · Thu Nov 15 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.76.053812· OSTI ID:21028081

Clader, B D; Eberly, J H ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627 (United States)

We examine fully coherent two-pulse propagation in a {lambda}-type medium, under two-photon resonance conditions and including inhomogeneous broadening. We examine the effects of both short pulse preparation and medium preparation. We contrast the cases in which the two pulses have or have not matched envelopes, and media with and without ground state coherence. We find that an extended interpretation of the area theorem for single-pulse self-induced transparency is able to unify two-pulse propagation scenarios, including some aspects of electromagnetically induced transparency and stimulated Raman scattering. We present numerical solutions of both three-level and adiabatically reduced two-level density matrix equations and Maxwell's equations, and show that many features of the solutions are quickly interpreted with the aid of analytical solutions that we also provide for restricted cases of pulse shapes and preparation of the medium. In the limit of large one-photon detuning, we show that the adiabatic two-level equations commonly used to study stimulated Raman scattering are not reliable for pulse areas in the 2{pi} range, which allows puzzling features of previous numerical work to be understood.

• OSTI ID: 21028081
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 76; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
COHERENT RADIATION
DENSITY MATRIX
ENERGY-LEVEL DENSITY
GROUND STATES
LIGHT TRANSMISSION
MAXWELL EQUATIONS
MIXED STATE
MULTI-PHOTON PROCESSES
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
OPACITY
OPTICS
PHOTONS
PULSES
RAMAN EFFECT
RESONANCE
SCATTERING
WAVE PROPAGATION