Abstract

Coherent signals produced by time delayed, fluctuating optical pulses interacting with atoms in the vapor phase have attracted much interest recently, due to their potential as a source of sub-picosecond time resolution.^1–3 The theoretical description of such experiments brings into play many profound questions connected with stochastic Bloch equations.^3,4 For example, even though the noise properties of a single laser beam may be Markovian in nature, in these experiments the atoms are subjected to at least two time-delayed fields which may be correlated. Because the atoms retain some memory of the first field at the time when the second field acts, the entire process becomes non-Markovian. In principle, the variation of such parameters as the homogeneous and inhomogeneous widths, allows the experimenter some degree of control over this memory time associated with the atomic medium.

© 1994 IEEE