Propagation of Raman-resonant frequency chirped laser pulses in a medium of lambda-atoms

A quasi-transparent propagation phenomenon is presented for a pair of frequency-modulated laser pulses in an optically thick medium of cold atomic gas. The noninteracting, identical lambda-structured atoms are driven by two classical laser fields, which are frequency-chirped in the same way around the corresponding atomic transition frequencies, maintaining two-photon (Raman) resonance. It is shown by numerical analysis that after propagating over a relatively short distance (determined by the absorption length), the frequency-chirped pulse pair is affected by the atoms in such a way that instead of exciting the atoms (as it would happen in an optically dilute medium), they create a certain coherent superposition of the ground states (which can be varied by the parameters of the incoming fields), and they propagate in the remainder of the medium without significant further losses. This quasi-lossless propagation effect of the Raman-resonant frequency-chirped pulses, described above, is not only interesting in the point of view of the laser fields, but the on-demand creation of coherent superpositions among atomic states along the optically thick medium may also find applications in quantum optical experiments and quantum informatics.