Propagation of subcycle pulses in a two-level medium: Area-theorem breakdown and pulse shape

Abstract

We solve the problem of ultrashort pulse propagation in a two-level medium beyond the rotating-wave (RWA) and slowly-varying-envelope approximations. The method of solution is based on the Maxwell--Bloch equations represented in the form that allows one to switch between RWA and general (non-RWA) cases in the framework of a single numerical algorithm. Using this method, the effect of a subcycle pulse (containing less than a single period of field oscillations) on the two-level medium was analyzed. It is shown that for such short pulses, the clear breakdown of the area theorem occurs for the pulses of large enough area. Moreover, deviations from the area theorem appear to be strongly dependent on the pulse shape that cannot be observed for longer few-cycle pulses.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Femtosecond pulses in a dense two-level medium: Spectral transformations, transient processes, and collisional dynamics
• Compression of an intensive light pulse in a dense resonant medium and photonic-band-gap structures containing it
• Controlled absorption and all-optical diode action due to collisions of self-induced transparency solitons
• Local field effect as a function of pulse duration

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• Optical kinks and kink-kink and kink-pulse interactions in resonant two-level media
• Few-cycle excitation of atomic coherence: A closed-form analytical solution beyond the rotating-wave approximation