Hysteresis behavior in light reflection from a dense resonant medium with intrinsic optical bistability

We consider a boundary value problem of reflection of a powerful light wave from a dense resonant medium that exhibits intrinsic optical bistability because of the dipole-dipole interaction of two-level atoms. On the basis of analytical solutions and numerical simulations we establish that intrinsic optical bistability results in the dependence of the reflection coefficient, on the adiabatically varying intensity of an external field. The reflection coefficient is an oscillating function of the intensity because of the additional reflectivity that is due to a light-induced sharp discontinuity in the nonlinear permittivity of a dense resonant medium. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America [S0740-3224(98)00803-0].