Microscopic and macroscopic descriptions of electromagnetic-field propagation relevant to resonant pumpprobe optical phenomena, such as electromagnetically induced transparency, in quantized many-electron systems are formulated within the framework of a general reduced-density-matrix approach. Time-domain (equation-of-motion) and frequency-domain (resolvent-operator) formulations are developed in a unified and self-consistent manner. A semiclassical perturbation-theory treatment of the electromagnetic interaction is adopted, in which the electromagnetic field is described as a classical field satisfying either the microscopic form or the macroscopic form of the Maxwell equations. However, it is emphasized that a quantized-field approach is essential for a fully self-consistent quantummechanical formulation. Compact Liouville-space operator expressions are obtained for the linear and the general (n'th order) non-linear electromagnetic-response tensors for moving many-electron systems. These expressions can be evaluated for coherent initial electronic excitations and for the full tetradic-matrix form of the Liouville-space selfenergy operator in the Markov (short-memory-time) approximation. Environmental interactions can be treated in terms of the Liouville-space self-energy operator, and the influence of Zeeman coherences on electromagnetic-field propagation can be investigated by including an applied magnetic field together with the electromagnetic field.

Date Published: 8 February 2012
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 8273, Advances in Slow and Fast Light V, 82730Z (8 February 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.914734

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8273:
Advances in Slow and Fast Light V
Selim M. Shahriar; Frank A. Narducci, Editor(s)