External magnetic field-assisted polarization-dependent optical bistability and multistability in a degenerate two-level EIT medium

Abstract

In this paper, a novel degenerate two-level model is proposed to study the behavior of optical bistability (OB) and optical multistability (OM) under the effect of the magnetic field and relative phase. We show that the behavior of the OB can appear in the resonant regime by changing the strength of the external magnetic field. Especially, the result has shown that it is possible to easily convert between OB and OM by adjusting the strength of the external magnetic field or coupling field in the presence of the relative phase. In addition, the influence of the probe detuning and the atomic cooperation parameter on the OB behavior have also been considered. The studied results may be helpful for optical communication applications in optical switching processing and optimization.