Observation of the transparency of a resonant medium to zero-degree optical pulses

Experiments are described in which low‐intensity laser pulses of zero area ${\mathrm{[\int }}_{\mathrm{-\infty }}^{\infty }\mathcal{E}\text{(z,t)\hspace{0.17em}dt=0]}$ are propagated through a degenerate resonantly absorbing medium with greatly reduced absorption. These pulses are constructed either electro‐optically or by allowing a non‐zero‐degree pulse to evolve toward zero area by means of a resonant absorption and reradiation process. We observe the transmission of as much as 65% of the energy of such pulses through a resonant absorber which attenuates the same cw laser by e^−αL, with αL ≈ 20.