Observability of optical precursors

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Abstract
The appearance of optical precursors in the transient response of linear dielectric media is elucidated by combining temporal and spectral analysis. Numerical calculations show that it is feasible to detect experimentally the precursors in the transient responses of excitonic resonances to picosecond excitation. A novel experiment is proposed in which precursors are spatially separated from the main part of the signal in a thin-prism sample. Some features of the transients in reflection are analyzed.