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arXiv · 1104.0158

Photon lifetime in a cavity containing a slow-light medium

Thomas Lauprêtre·Cédric Proux·Rupamanjari Ghosh·Sylvain Schwartz·Fabienne Goldfarb·Fabien Bretenaker
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Abstract

We investigate experimentally the lifetime of the photons in a cavity containing a medium exhibiting strong positive dispersion. This intracavity positive dispersion is provided by a metastable helium gas at room temperature in the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) regime, in which light propagates at a group velocity of the order of 10000 m/s. The results definitely prove that the lifetime of the cavity photons is governed by the group velocity of light in the cavity, and not its phase velocity.

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Thomas Lauprêtre, Cédric Proux, Rupamanjari Ghosh, Sylvain Schwartz, Fabienne Goldfarb, Fabien Bretenaker. 2011-04-01. Photon lifetime in a cavity containing a slow-light medium. https://doi.org/10.1364/ol.36.001551

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