Nonstationary effects in velocity-selective optical pumping

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Abstract
Time-dependent analysis of nonstationary effects in velocity-selective optical pumping is performed with a four-level model for weak light intensities. No phenomenological relaxation constants are introduced and the nonstationary effects are obtained as the consequence of averaging the time evolution of individual atoms in a vapor phase moving in the light fields when typical pumping times are comparable with the finite laser-beam transit times. Under appropriate conditions strong deformation of the population distribution of the long-lived lower state occurs, which in the case of polarization spectroscopy is responsible for the appearance of a dip (possibly narrower than the homogeneous linewidth) in the center of a Doppler-free resonance. The theoretical results are in a good qualitative agreement with the recent experimental observations.