English

Chasing 'Slow Light'

Optics 2009-11-11 v2

Abstract

A critical review of experimental studies of the so-called 'slow light' arising due to anomalously high steepness of the refractive index dispersion under conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent population oscillations is presented. It is shown that a considerable amount of experimental evidence for observation of the 'slow light' is not related to the low group velocity of light and can be easily interpreted in terms of a standard model of interaction of light with a saturable absorber.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.physics/0602186,
  title  = {Chasing 'Slow Light'},
  author = {E. B. Aleksandrov and V. S. Zapasskii},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0602186},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

17 pages, 8 figures, to be published in June issue of Phisics: Uspekhi under the title "Notes on Slow Light"