Negative response with an optical cavity and traveling wave fields

Abstract

We present a feasible protocol using a traveling wave field to experimentally observe a negative response, i.e., to obtain a decrease in the output field intensity when the input field intensity is increased. Our protocol uses one beam splitter and two mirrors to direct the traveling wave field into a lossy cavity in which there is a three-level atom in a Λ configuration. In our scheme, the input field impinges on a beam splitter and, while the transmitted part is used to drive the cavity mode, the reflected part is used as the control field to obtain a negative response of the output field. We show that the greater the cooperativity of the atom-cavity system, the more pronounced the negative response. The system we are proposing can be used to protect devices sensitive to intense fields, since the intensity of the output field, which should be directed to the device to be protected, is diminished when the intensity of the input field increases.