Coherent transients in gases

Abstract

A great variety of coherent transient processes in atomic and molecular gases is investigated. The degeneracy with respect to magnetic sublevels, which is typical of working levels of atomic and molecular transitions in gases, leads to new phenomena. In particular, the non-Faraday rotation of the coherent-response polarization vector at the 0 ↔ 1 transition is investigated in the presence of the longitudinal magnetic field in the 174Yb vapor for both photon echo and stimulated photon echo. A specific relaxation channel that involves the depolarizing collisions emerges in a gas due to the degeneracy of working levels. Such collisions are especially important for atoms and are also observed in molecules. The anisotropy of the depolarizing collisions leads to a new phenomenon of the collision photon echo, which is experimentally demonstrated for the 0 ↔ 1 transition in the 174Yb mixtures with atomic buffers. The velocity-dependent relaxation rates are observed for various coherent phenomena in molecular gases. The coherent control of a few coherent transient processes is implemented.