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Physical Review Letters

Transient Suppression of the Autler-Townes Doublet

Yue Bai, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG, Ning Lü, P. R. Berman

Published Oct 6, 1986• 40 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Working with a beam of $^{174}\mathrm{Yb}$, we have studied the temporal development of Autler-Townes spectra following switchon of a strong, resonant, driving field. The transient fluorescence spectra observed are dramatically different from those found in the steady state. We find that either member of the Autler-Townes doublet can be eliminated by an appropriate shift in the phase of the driving field, and that the spectral peaks can display interesting temporal oscillations. The observed behavior is interpreted in terms of atomic dynamics and a polarization of the dressed atom-field states.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.57.1692

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Working with a beam of 174Yb^{174}\mathrm{Yb}174Yb, we have studied the temporal development of Autler-Townes spectra following switchon of a strong, resonant, driving field. The transient fluorescence spectra observed are dramatically different from those found in the steady state. We find that either member of the Autler-Townes doublet can be eliminated by an appropriate shift in the phase of the driving field, and that the spectral peaks can display interesting temporal oscillations. The observed behavior is interpreted in terms of atomic dynamics and a polarization of the dressed atom-field states.
Working with a beam of two-level--atom--like 174Yb^{174}\mathrm{Yb}174Yb, we have measured the temporal evolution of strong-field resonance fluorescence spectra during square-pulse excitation. In the case of resonant excitation, it is found that driving-field phase shifts transform the normal three-peaked Mollow spectrum into a transient doublet spectrum asymmetric with respect to the atomic transition frequency. This qualitatively new type of spectrum provides fundamental insight into the connection between atomic dynamics and spectra, and results from a nearly perfect polarization of the dressed atom-field states.
We study the transient fluorescence spectra of two-level atoms driven by a strong optical field when the atoms are initially prepared in pure dressed states of the atom-field Hamiltonian. Spectra obtained here differ qualitatively from those observed in the steady state. In the case of steady-state resonant excitation, a three-peaked spectrum symmetric about the laser frequency is obtained; with pure-dressed-state preparation, the symmetry of the spectrum about the driving field is broken---one side peak is initially enhanced and the other is initially suppressed. Furthermore, the temporal oscillations of fluorescence intensity observed in previous calculations of transient fluorescence spectra appropriate to atoms prepared in a superposition of dressed states [J. H. Eberly et al., J. Phys. B 13, 217 (1980)] are suppressed when pure-dressed-state preparation is considered.
We study the Autler-Townes absorption spectrum of the upper and intermediate levels of a three-level cascade atom in which the intermediate and ground levels are strongly driven by a laser field as well as weakly coupled by a cavity mode [Phys. Rev. 100, 703 (1955)]. Surprisingly, one of the Autler-Townes peaks may be greatly suppressed or enhanced by tuning the cavity resonant frequency. The larger the Rabi frequency, the more pronounced the cavity-induced suppression or enhancement. The Autler-Townes spectrum carries full information on the cavity-induced modification of the strongly driven levels. A physical interpretation is presented in the dressed-state basis.
We analyze the transient probe spectra that arise when a three-level atom is strongly driven by an optical field nearly resonant with one transition and is probed by a step-function weak field on a coupled transition. We pay particular attention to the effect of imbalances in the initial dressed-state populations on the observed spectra. As recently pointed out, such imbalances may be induced by sudden changes in the phase of the driving field. We find that transient probe spectra may differ dramatically for different initial atomic conditions. We follow the temporal relaxation of these novel probe spectra to their steady-state form. Our calculations do not include the effect of inhomogeneous broadening and are hence appropriate to studies of collimated atomic beams.
We study the effects of driving a two-level atom by two intense field modes that have equal frequencies but are otherwise distinguishable; the intensity of one mode is also assumed to be greater than that of the other. We calculate first the dressed states of the system, and then its resonance fluorescence and Autler-Townes absorption spectra. We find that the energy spectrum of the doubly dressed atom consists of a ladder of doublet continua. These continua manifest themselves in the fluorescence spectrum, where they produce continua at the positions of the Mollow sideband frequencies ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\omega}}}_{\mathrm{L}}$ \ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2\ensuremath{\Omega} of the strong field, and in the Autler-Townes absorption spectrum, which becomes a two-continuum doublet.
The damped and coherently-driven JaynesndashndashndashCummings model
We investigate the influence of a single-mode cavity on the Autler–Townes doublet that arises when a three-level atom is strongly driven by a laser field tuned to one of the atomic transitions and probed by a tunable, weak field coupled to the other transition. We assume that the cavity mode is coupled to the driven transition and the cavity and laser frequencies are equal to the atomic transition frequency. We find that the Autler–Townes spectrum can have one, two or three peaks depending on the relative magnitudes of the Rabi frequencies of the cavity and driving fields. We show that, in order to understand the three-peaked spectrum, it is necessary to go beyond the secular approximation, leading to interesting quantum interference effects. We find that the positions and relative intensities of the three spectral components are affected strongly by the atom–cavity coupling strength g and the cavity damping κ. For an increasing g and/or decreasing κ the triplet evolves into a single peak. This results in 'undressing' of the system such that the atom collapses into its ground state. We interpret the spectral features in terms of the semiclassical dressed-atom model, and also provide complementary views of the cavity effects in terms of quantum Langevin equations and the fully quantized, 'double-dressing' model.