LASER APPLICATIONS AND OTHER TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS: Transient coherent Doppler-free spectroscopy of two-photon absorption in the presence of depolarizing collisions

Abstract

A detailed analysis is made of transient coherent Doppler-free spectroscopy of two-photon absorption in an atomic gas. The hyperfine structure of the levels and elastic depolarizing collisions are allowed for. The analysis is used to develop a method for the determination of the time constant of relaxation of the multipole moments of atoms when such relaxation is due to radiative decay and collisions with a buffer gas. A way of determining the separation between the hyperfine structure components is demonstrated. It is shown that under conditions of excitation of the atoms the hyperfine structure of the levels can give rise to quantum beats of the density of a conjugate wave.