Optical precursors in transparent media

Abstract

We theoretically study the linear propagation of a stepwise pulse through a dilute dispersive medium when the frequency of the optical carrier coincides with the center of a natural or electromagnetically induced transparency window of the medium (slow-light systems). We obtain fully analytical expressions of the entirety of the step response and show that, for parameters representative of real experiments, Sommerfeld-Brillouin precursors, main field and second precursors "postcursors" can be distinctly observed, all with amplitudes comparable to that of the incident step. This behavior strongly contrasts with that of the systems generally considered up to now.

References in corpus (4)

• Wide-bandwidth, tunable, multiple-pulse-width optical delays using slow light in cesium vapor
• Low-distortion slow light using two absorption resonances
• Broadband optical delay with large dynamic range using atomic dispersion
• Pulse Normalisation in Slow-Light Media

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Generation of nonlinear vortex precursors
• From Sommerfeld and Brillouin forerunners to optical precursors
• Simple asymptotic forms for Sommerfeld and Brillouin precursors
• Optical Precursors with Self-induced Transparency
• Approach to accurately measuring the speed of optical precursors
• Modal analysis of wave propagation in dispersive media
• Optical precursors in waveguide quantum electrodynamics