Ground-state pump-probe spectroscopy

The absorption/gain spectrum of a weak probe field is theoretically analyzed for an atomic three-level A system driven by a strong pump field and perturbed by collisions with buffer-gas atoms. It is assumed that both pump and probe drive the same transition. When the dark state is sufficiently long lived, the probe spectrum exhibits an extremely narrow (possibly subnatural-width) resonance. It is shown that coherence-preserving collisions drastically (both qualitatively and quantitatively) change the probe absorption spectrum even at a low collision frequency, when Dicke narrowing is negligible. Strong coherence effects on the resonance structure at low gas pressures is explained by a change in refractive index due to coherence-preserving collisions for particles in the resonant velocity group.