The effects of spontaneously generated coherence (SGC) on the propagation of a weak probe pulse are investigated in a ladder-type atomic system. Due to SGC, the properties of the dispersion and the absorption of a three-level ladder-type system are changed greatly. With proper parameters, the system can produce normal and anomalous dispersion regions in the gain region. The effects of the incoherent pumping and the relative phase on the group velocity are also studied. They all can be used as switches to manipulate the group velocity of the weak probe field from gain-assisted sub- to superluminance.
The linear and nonlinear pulse propagations in lifetime-broadened three-state media with spontaneously generated coherence (SGC) are investigated theoretically. Three generic systems of V-,
Λ-, and
Ξ-type level configurations are considered and compared. It is shown that in linear propagation regime the SGC in the V-type system can result in a significant change of dispersion and absorption and may be used to completely eliminate the absorption and largely reduce the group velocity of a probe field. However, the SGC has no effect on the dispersion and absorption of the
Λ- and
Ξ-type systems. In nonlinear propagation regime, the SGC displays different influences on Kerr nonlinearity for different systems. Specifically, it can enhance the Kerr nonlinearity of the V-type system whereas weaken the Kerr nonlinearity of the
Λ-type system. Using the SGC, stable optical solitons with ultraslow propagating velocity and very low pump power can be produced in the V-type system by exploiting only one laser field in the system.