Optical attenuation without absorption

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PhysRevA.100.013850.pdf (1.4 MB)

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https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.100.013850

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https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.100.013850
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/19333

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2019-07-25

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journal articles
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Citation of Original Publication

I. C. Nodurft, R. A. Brewster, T. B. Pittman, and J. D. Franson, Optical attenuation without absorption, Phys. Rev. A 100 (01) 3850 (2019), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.100.013850

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©2019 American Physical Society

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Abstract

We consider a coherent state of light propagating through an ensemble of two-level atoms where all the atoms are initially in their ground state. In ordinary absorption, the transition of atoms to their excited state along with the absorption of a photon will remove energy from the beam and attenuate the signal. Here we show that post-selecting on those cases in which none of the atoms made a transition to the excited state can give even more attenuation than would normally occur due to absorption. The same process can also produce amplification when there is a sufficiently strong interaction between the photons and the atoms.