Electromagnetically induced absorption and transparency in magneto-optical resonances in an elliptically polarized field

Abstract

Using a 1 to 2 transition as an analytically tractable model, we discuss in detail magneto-optical resonances of both EIA (electromagnetically induced absorption) and EIT (electromagnetically induced transparency) types in the Hanle configuration. The analysis is made for arbitrary rate of depolarizing collisions in the excited state and arbitrary elliptical field polarization. The obtained results clearly show that the main reason for the EIA sub-natural resonance is the spontaneous transfer of anisotropy from the excited level to the ground one. In the EIA case we predict the negative structures in the absortpion resonance at large field detuning. The role of the finite atom-light interaction time is briefly discussed. In addition we study non-trivial peculiarities of the resonance lineshape related to the velocity spread in a gas.