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Physical Review A

General theory of laser-induced quantum beats. I. Saturation effects of single laser excitation

Mark P. Silverman, S. Haroche, M. Groß

Published Oct 1, 1978• 44 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A general theory of quantum beats induced by pulsed-laser excitation is presented. The theory accounts for laser saturation effects such as stimulated emission from the excited atomic state during passage of the light pulse and light-induced atomic-level displacements. Under certain experimental conditions saturation may result in a modification, sometimes even in a regeneration, of the beat amplitudes.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.18.1507

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Canadian Journal of Physics•Jun 1, 1992•2 citations
A general theory of quantum beats induced by pulsed-laser excitation is presented. The theory accounts for laser saturation effects such as stimulated emission from the excited atomic state during passage of the light pulse and light-induced atomic-level displacements. Under certain experimental conditions saturation may result in a modification, sometimes even in a regeneration, of the beat amplitudes.
A theory of stepwise pulsed-laser excitation of cascade Zeeman quantum beats has been developed for a four-level system. The laser pulses are treated in the broad-line approximation and the full optical-pumping equations for the atomic-density matrix of each level have been obtained. These can be used to describe saturation and light shift effects. The weak-pumping theory solutions to the optical pumping equations have been used to obtain expressions for the cascade quantum-beat intensity versus time curves. Larmor precession, spontaneous-emission decay and the populating of the final cascade level during the excitation pulse are all allowed for. A Wiener-Levy phase diffusion model with slowly varying amplitudes is used for the laser pulses, and the final theoretical expressions for the quantum beats depend on the time-dependent intensities of the laser pulses as well as on their polarisations. Hyperfine effects have been ignored. The theory applies to both coincident pulses and to pulses with a time delay between them. An illustrative application to the case of two very short but coincident pulses (during which Larmor precession, spontaneous emission etc. can be ignored) is given. In an accompanying paper the theoretical expressions are further evaluated and successfully applied to the interpretation of cascade Zeeman quantum beat experiments in Fe I.
A general theory of laser-induced quantum beats introduced in paper I is extended to include the effects of sequential laser excitation by several lasers for atomic systems either free or subjected to external static fields. A detailed study is made of the dependence of the quantum beat signal on the polarizations of the exciting laser pulses and detected spontaneous emission. The theory is applied to the echelon excitation of sodium nD\mathrm{nD}nD Rydberg states. An analysis of the Zeeman beats produced by excitation in an external magnetic field suggests new ways to measure the fine-structure interaction constant of the Rydberg levels.
A theory of quantum beats in a Stokes signal observed in pump-probe experiments upon excitation of four-level atoms with two close upper lying levels by femtosecond laser pulses is developed. Quantum beats arise in the intensity of the Stokes field due to the interference of two atomic wave packets generated by ultrashort pump and probe pulses. An analytical solution of the non-steady-state Maxwell-Bloch equations is obtained, and the dependence of the Stokes radiation intensity on the delay time between two laser pulses is investigated. The theoretical results describe qualitatively well the observed features of quantum beats.
We have calculated the excitation spectra of a single electron in the excited state of a four-level atom interacting with three laser fields at low intensities, where two of them are on two-photon resonance with the three levels of the atom, while the third laser is a weak one operating between the fourth and excited level of the atom. It is shown that light is switched off at certain frequency due to the coherent population trapping while light is turned on at another frequency, where stimulated emission occurs leading to light amplification without population inversion.
I consider light amplification arising from the competition between absorption and stimulated emission of an excitation, which is induced by a laser field at low intensities interacting with a three-level atom. The lifetime of the induced excitation is 105–106 times longer than those of spontaneously emitted excitations. Conditions are established under which the stimulated emission prevails over the induced absorption, and the net negative intensity is 102–103 times greater than those of spontaneously emitted excitations, indicating that significant amplification occurs near the frequency of the laser field. PACS numbers: 32.80-t, 42.50.-p, 42.50H2
We have considered the induced processes that occur in a driven two-level atom, where a laser photon is absorbed and emitted by the ground and by the excited states of the atom, respectively. In the low-intensity limit of the laser field, the induced spectra arising when a laser photon is absorbed by the ground state of the atom consist of two peaks describing induced-absorption and stimulated-emission processes, respectively, where the former prevails over the latter. Asymmetry of the spectral lines occurs at off-resonance and its extent depends on the detuning of the laser field. The physical, process where a laser photon is emitted by the excited state is the reverse of that arising from the absorption of a laser photon by the ground state of the atom. The former differs from the latter in that the emission of a laser photon by the excited state occurs in the low-frequency regime and that the stimulated-emission process prevails over that of the induced absorption. In this case, amplification of ultrashort pulses is likely to occur without the need of population inversion between the optical transitions. The computed spectra are graphically presented and discussed.