Physical Review A
Two types of adiabatons in electromagnetically induced transparency
R. N. Shakhmuratov, J. Odeurs
Abstract
We analyze the energy transformation of light propagating with slow group velocity in a three-level medium. Depending on the excitation scheme, the energy of the probe can be transformed into the coupling field or into the atomic excitation. As a result a zero-energy adiabaton develops for the lambda scheme or an energy carrying adiabaton is formed for the ladder scheme. In both cases slow light is produced by the atoms, also feeding this light by the energy stored in the metastable state (ladder scheme) or borrowing the energy from the coupling field (lambda scheme).