Experimental Investigation of the Transition between Autler-Townes Splitting and Electromagnetically-Induced Transparency

TL;DR

This paper experimentally investigates a method to distinguish between Autler-Townes splitting and electromagnetically induced transparency in cold cesium atoms, validating the approach and exploring factors affecting the transition.

Contribution

The study experimentally validates a proposed Akaike's information criterion-based method for discriminating ATS and EIT in cold atom systems.

Findings

Good agreement with theoretical predictions

Method effectively distinguishes ATS from EIT

Rabi frequency depends on level structure and broadening

Abstract

Two phenomena can affect the transmission of a weak signal field through an absorbing medium in the presence of a strong additional field: electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) and Autler-Townes splitting (ATS). Being able to discriminate between the two is important for various applications. Here we present an experimental investigation into a method that allows for such a disambiguation as proposed in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 163604 (2011)]. We apply the proposed test based on Akaike's information criterion to a coherently driven ensemble of cold cesium atoms and find a good agreement with theoretical predictions, therefore demonstrating the suitability of the method. Additionally, our results demonstrate that the value of the Rabi frequency for the ATS/EIT model transition in such a system depends on the level structure and on the residual inhomogeneous broadening.