Influence of absorbing dielectric background on bistable response of dense collection of two-level atoms

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dielectric absorption influences the optical bistability in dense two-level atomic systems, showing that even minimal absorption can suppress response instabilities through local-field effects.

Contribution

It introduces a semiclassical model analyzing the impact of dielectric absorption on optical bistability in dense atomic media, highlighting the stabilizing role of absorption.

Findings

Dielectric absorption eliminates response instabilities.

Local-field enhancement factor is key to understanding bistability.

Propagation effects are significant in the nonlocal regime.

Abstract

The stationary problem of light interaction with a dense collection of two-level atoms embedded in a dielectric is treated semiclassically. The effect of dielectric absorption on the phenomenon of intrinsic optical bistability is discussed in terms of the complex local-field enhancement factor. The calculations accounting propagation effects (nonlocal regime) show that even low dielectric absorption results in elimination of response instabilities.