Abstract
Experimental investigations of optical bistability (OB) for systems with degenerate lower states have up to now relied principally on atomic sodium [1-4]. The study of the influence of lower level coherence effects in OB [5] is greatly aided by the use of a nonlinear medium having a transition with integral electronic angular momentum character. A suitable choice upon which we report here is the 4f6 6s2 (7F1) to 4f6 6s6p (7Foo) 570.68-nm transition in SmI, driven by linearly polarized laser excitation in a near-concentric Fabry-Perot cavity. Unlike the case of the Na J = 1/2 to J = 1/2 D1 transition, for which polarization asymmetry in switching (PS) develops spontaneously [1-4], for the above transition we find that the symmetry in the polarization is conserved. No polarization differences of σ+ with respect to σ− develop in the output from the optical cavity. This behaviour accords with the theoretical expectation [6] that PS is suppressed by transverse optical pumping.
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