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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Optical free-induction-decay quantum beats in multilevel systems

A. I. Alekseev, O. V. Zhemerdeev

Published Jan 1, 1987• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A theory of optical free-induction decay (FID) induced by two exciting light pulses in three-level atomic systems subjected to a constant magnetic field is presented. The theory takes into account the hyperfine interaction, the level degeneracy, and the dependence of the FID signal on the polarizations of the exciting pulses. An analysis of the FID signal in a magnetic field suggests new ways to measure the g factors of the levels, the hyperfine structure constants, and the relaxation rates. The results obtained are extended to include the echelon excitation of the multilevel system by a definite set of light pulses with specially chosen frequencies and polarizations.

DOI
10.1364/josab.4.000030

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A theory of optical free-induction decay (FID) induced by two exciting light pulses in three-level atomic systems subjected to a constant magnetic field is presented. The theory takes into account the hyperfine interaction, the level degeneracy, and the dependence of the FID signal on the polarizations of the exciting pulses. An analysis of the FID signal in a magnetic field suggests new ways to measure the g factors of the levels, the hyperfine structure constants, and the relaxation rates. The results obtained are extended to include the echelon excitation of the multilevel system by a definite set of light pulses with specially chosen frequencies and polarizations.
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.
We report theoretical and experimental studies of the propagation of a square-modulated laser pulse through a laser-cooled atomic ensemble of two-level absorbers, as well as through a three-level system with electromagnetically induced transparency. We find that the transmission characteristics over a wide range of optical depth can be fully accounted for as optical coherent transients excited by the wide spectral content of the square-modulated optical pulse. We show that both time-domain atom-field coupled equations and frequency-domain linear dispersion theory give precisely the same description of the optical transients at a weak power limit. At low optical depth with moderate absorption, resonant excitation dominates and free-induction decay (FID) contributes mostly to the transient field. At high optical depth when absorption and propagation effects become significant, lossless optical precursors start to dominate the transient response. By varying the optical depth from 0 to 45, we observe that optical transients evolve gradually from FID to optical precursors. We thus show that FID and optical precursors, which have been considered as two different optical transients for many decades, can be unified within a single theoretical frame and they are the manifestations of the same physical process in two different regimes.
We report the observation of coherent two-photon free-induction decay (FID) in a three-level Lambda system excited by a low-intensity square-modulated laser pulse. Using electromagnetically induced transparency in an Rb85 cold atomic cloud, for what we believe to be the first time, we observe FID signals with coherence time exceeding the relevant atomic excited-state natural lifetime. Because of the on-resonance enhancement, the two-photon FID signal can be observed at the falling edge without using heterodyne means.
The free-induction decay (FID) signals emitted by a two-level spin system (E1′{E}_{1}^{\mathcal{'}}E1′​ centers in glassy silica), coherently prepared by a short pulse of resonant radiation, have been experimentally investigated in the frequency domain. Our results show that, under the same conditions in which FID signals are oscillatory in the time domain, the spectra are characterized by a regular series of emission zeros. A vectorial model accounts for the occurrence of the zeros and for their spectral positions.
The free-induction decay (FID) after saturation by a laser radiation pulse of finite duration is studied for systems with spectral diffusion. The exact solution of the FID signal shape has been obtained in the framework of a model of noncorrelated spectral exchange. The analysis accounts for the finite duration of the saturating field and is valid at an arbitrary value of the spectral exchange rate and amplitude of the coherent field. An exact expression for the FID signal is derived in the weak-external-field limit. A self-consistent explanation of the experimental field dependence of the FID rate [A. Szabo and T. Muramoto, Phys. Rev. A 39, 3992 (1989)] is obtained using a model of slow noncorrelated spectral diffusion.