Mixture of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency and Autler–Townes Splitting in a Five-Level Atomic System**Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 11274132, 11547208, and the Science Foundation of China Three Gorges University

Abstract

Discerning electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) from Autler–Townes splitting (ATS) is a significant issue in quantum optics and has attracted wide attention in various three-level configurations. Here we present a detailed study of EIT and ATS in a five-level atomic system considered to be composed of a four-level Y-type subsystem and a three-level Λ-type subsystem. In our theoretical calculations with standard density matrix formalism and steady-state approximation, we obtain the general analytical expression of the first-order matrix element responsible for the probe-field absorption. In light of the well-known three-level EIT and ATS criteria, we numerically show an intersection of EIT with ATS for the Y-type subsystem. Furthermore, we show that an EIT dip is sandwiched between two ATS dips (i.e., multi-dip mixture of EIT and ATS) in the absorption line for the five-level system, which can be explained by the dressed-state theory and Fano interference.