Abstract

The equations of motion for a ring cavity containing a cell of two-level atoms are where E₀ and ε(t) are the cw input and intracavity electric field amplitudes at the input mirror. The phase difference {ϕ(t) - ϕ(0)} gives a measure of the amount of energy absorbed by the atoms and χϕ(t) is proportional to the instantaneous complex nonlinear refractive index. Other parameters in Eqs. (1) and (2) are the reflectivity factor R = 1 - T, γ^-1 the inversion relaxation time for an atom, and τ_R the round-trip time.

© 1985 Optical Society of America