Discrimination of one-photon and two-photon coherence parts in electromagnetically induced transparency for a ladder-type three-level atomic system

We present discrimination of the effect of one-photon and two-photon coherences in electromagnetically induced transparency for a three-level ladder-type atomic system. After the optical Bloch equations for a three-level atom, with either cycling or non-cycling transitions, were solved numerically, the solutions were averaged over the velocity distribution and finite transit time. Through this we were able to discriminate one-photon and two-photon coherence parts of the calculated spectra. We also found that the spectra showed peaks as the branching ratio of the intermediate (excited) state increased (decreased). The experimental results of previous reports [H. S. Moon, et al., Opt. Express 16, 12163 (2008); H. S. Moon and H. R. Noh, J. Phys. B 44, 055004 (2011)] could well be accounted for by this discrimination of one-photon and two-photon coherences in the transmittance signals for the simplified three-level atomic system. c 2011 Optical Society of America