Self-induced transparency in the presence of the Kerr nonlinearity

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Abstract
The self-induced transparency solution of the Bloch-Maxwell equations is found in the case of inhomogeneously broadened resonant atomic lines and a host medium with a Kerr-type nonlinearity in the index of refraction. The characteristic feature of the solution is that the atomic functions are not factorized. The time dependence of the pulse phase is different from that in the case of a sharp atomic line. In addition to the known term quadratic in the pulse envelope, it contains a term increasing in time, attaining a maximum at the trailing edge of the pulse, and rapidly decreasing afterwards. The average carrier frequency is proportional to the square of the spectral width of the atomic line divided by the squared width of the pulse. A satisfactory solution is found by modulation of the center of the Lorentz distribution function of the purely resonant solutions. It is shown that in the presence of the inhomogeneous broadening the problem cannot be solved by a linear perturbation expansion with respect to the Kerr constant. This method leads to divergencies near the trailing edge of the pulse.