Abstract

Recently, considerable attention has been drawn to extremely slow light¹ obtained in the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency.² The reason is that slow light may lead to exceptionally large nonlinearities and, in particular, to efficient nonlinear processes at energies of a few photons per atomic cross section.³ Extremely low group velocities of light have been observed in resonant systems such as a Bose-Einstein condensate of ultracold sodium atoms or hot rubidium vapors.¹ Meanwhile, there is a large number of nonlinear optical techniques based on nonresonant interaction. Therefore, it is desirable to study the possibility of slow light in far-off-resonance media.

© 2001 Optical Society of America