Damping of light in a weakly resonant inhomogeneous medium

Abstract

On the basis of an expression obtained earlier for the permittivity in the form of a series in powers of the atomic polarizability, the mechanism of damping of light caused by the processes of reemission between two atoms is considered. It is shown that, on an increase in the polarizability, as a consequence of the light frequency approaching the resonance frequency, this mechanism leads to a sharp increase in the extinction coefficient. This effect is caused by the collective behavior of the atoms and is not connected with the natural absorption near the resonance.