Abstract

Optical pumping between ground-state Zeeman sublevels recently has attracted much attention as a nonlinear mechanism in optical bistability and tristability, under both steady-state¹ and transient conditions.² If, in addition to optical feedback, the Zeeman-pumped atoms are subjected to a transverse static magnetic field, new phenomena are known to arise,^2–5 the most prominent among them being the self-sustained spin precession.^4,5 We report on new results and systematic studies on the various types of magnetically induced optical multistabilities in a sodium-filled Fabry-Perot resonator.

© 1984 Optical Society of America