Normal modes of a probe field in the pulsed regime of electromagnetically induced transparency in a Λ-scheme of degenerate quantum transitions

Resumo

The effect of separation of linearly polarized short probe pulses of electromagnetically induced transparency in the field of linearly polarized coupling radiation is modeled numerically. It is shown that the input-probe pulses polarized parallel or perpendicular to the input-probe field propagate in the medium without changing the state of their polarization. If the input-probe radiation is weak compared to the coupling radiation, then the probe field inside the medium is the sum of two independently propagating linearly polarized normal modes, which are excited by the projections of the input-probe pulse onto the direction of polarization of the coupling radiation and onto the perpendicular direction, respectively. The normal modes have the same phase velocities, but different velocities of their real envelopes. This circumstance leads to the rotation of the plane of polarization of the total probe field at short distances and to its separation into two pulses with mutually perpendicular directions of polarization at long distances. At a high intensity of the probe radiation, the input-probe pulse decays into pulses the planes of polarization of which are not mutually perpendicular. Under these conditions, it is impossible to represent the probe radiation as a sum of normal modes. The modeling is performed in the scheme of degenerate quantum transitions between states of levels ³P₀, ³P₁⁰, and ³P₂ of isotope ²⁰⁸Pb taking into account the Doppler broadening of spectral lines.