Coherence as an indicator to discern electromagnetically induced transparency and Autler–Townes splitting

Abstract

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Autler–Townes splitting (ATS) are generally characterized and distinguished by the width of the transparency created in the absorption profile of a weak probe in presence of a strong control field. This often leads to ambiguities, as both phenomena yield similar spectroscopic signatures. However, an objective method based on Akaike’s information criterion (AIC) test offers a quantitative way to discern the two regimes when applied on the probe absorption profile. The obtained transition value of control field strength was found to be higher than the value given by pole analysis of the corresponding off-diagonal density matrix element. By contrast, we apply the test on ground state coherence and the measured coherence quantifier, which yields a distinct transition point around the predicted value even in presence of noise. Our test accurately captures the transition between two regimes, indicating that a proper measure of coherence is essential for making such distinctions.