Sum third order frequency mixing of a strong bichromatic field interacting with a three-level atom

Abstract

We have considered the excitation spectra of three-photon processes arising from the interaction of a three-level atom, in the cascade configuration, with two strong electromagnetic fields whose initially populated modes ω a and ω b are near resonance with the atomic transition frequencies ω21 and ω32, respectively. In the limit of high photon densities, expressions for the Green's functions are derived in a closed form describing third order nonlinear processes in the region of frequencies ω = ω a + 2ω b and ω = ω b + 2ω a , respectively. Numerical calculations are then performed and the computed spectra are presented graphically for different values of the Rabi frequencies Ω a and Ω b , and detunings ζ a and ζ b , respectively. The excitation spectrum near ω = ω a + 2ω b is calculated as a function of the parameters η a = Ω a /γ0, η b = Ω b /γ0, ζ a = (ω21 - ω a )/γ0 and ζ b = (ω32 - ω b )/γ0 where γ0 is the spontaneous transition probability. With no detuning the spectral intensities vary slowly with r...