Abstract

In recent years there have been several experimental demonstrations of the application of polarization spectroscopy (PS) as a combustion diagnostic technique.1-3 However, there have been very few theoretical investigations of the technique since the work of Teets et al.4 in 1977. Teets et al.4 investigated the low-laser-power limit where saturation effects are small. In this paper we present the initial results of a theoretical investigation of polarization spectroscopy using the method of direct numerical integration (DNI) of the time-dependent density matrix equations to analyze the process. The application of this numerical method allows us to include saturation effects, Doppler effects, non-steady-state effects associated with the finite pulse length of the pump and probe lasers, and will enable us to investigate in great detail the effects of different kinds of collisions.

© 1998 Optical Society of America