Elliptically polarised normal modes under conditions of nonstationary electromagnetically induced transparency

We report the results of numerical simulation of the evolution of a weak elliptically polarised input probe pulse in the case of electromagnetically induced transparency in the field of elliptically polarised control light. It is shown that the electric field strength of any input probe pulse can be represented as a sum of the electric field strengths of two subpulses whose polarisation ellipses have the same constant eccentricities and mutually perpendicular directions of the major axes, one of these axes being parallel to the major axis of the polarisation ellipse of the control light. The directions of rotation of the electric field strength vectors of subpulses are mutually opposite. Subpulses move with different velocities in a medium, which leads to their spatial separation. In the propagation of subpulses, their polarisation characteristics (eccentricities and directions of major axes of polarisation ellipses) remain unchanged. At any stage of evolution, including the instants of significant spatial overlapping of subpulses, the intensity of the probe light in the medium is the sum of their intensities. Consequently, these subpulses are nonstationary mutually orthogonal elliptically polarised normal modes of the probe field whose existence is related to the medium anisotropy caused by the control field. The simulation is carried out for a scheme of degenerate quantum transitions between ³P₀, ³P⁰₁ and ³P₂ levels of the 208Pb isotope, taking into account the Doppler broadening of the spectral lines under the assumption that the probe field has a higher frequency than the control field.