Strong amplification of sidebands in a strongly driven three-level atomic system. II. Classical description of the laser field

Abstract

The fluorescent spectra arising from the interaction of a three-level atom with a strong pump field and a weak signal field have been studied simultaneously. The atom consists of an upper excited state ‖2〉 and two lower ground states ‖3〉 and ‖1〉, which arise by removing the degeneracy of the ground state by applying internal or external fields. The laser field depletes the metastable state ‖3〉 by bringing the electrons into the excited state ‖2〉 from where the electrons emit photons and decay into the lower states through the transitions ‖2〉 → ‖3〉 and ‖2〉 → ‖1〉, which are described by the signal field. Using a classical description of the laser field, where in the model Hamiltonian the laser–atom interaction is treated classically while the free and interacting electron and signal fields are quantized, the decay process ‖2〉 ↔ ‖1〉 of the signal field is considered by evaluating the appropriate Green’s function of the system. The spectral function for the ‖2〉 ↔ ‖1〉 transition of the signal field describes one-photon, three-photon, and two-photon Raman processes, respectively. The one-photon spectra consist of the main peak at the signal frequency and a pair of sidebands, which are symmetrically located from the position of the main peak. The intensity of the main peak is positive while that of the sidebands is negative indicating that the signal is attenuated and is amplified at the corresponding frequencies, respectively. The three-photon and two-photon Raman spectra are described by a doublet, respectively, whose intensities are always negative, implying amplification of the signal field. The computed spectra are presented graphically and compared with those derived in a recent study, where the laser field is quantized and photon–photon correlations are taken into consideration in the limit of high photon densities of the laser field. A detailed discussion of both treatments is given for the processes under investigation.