Light-induced states in the transient-absorption spectrum of a periodically pumped strong-field-excited system

Abstract

The transient-absorption spectrum of a $V$-type three-level system is investigated, when this is periodically excited by a train of equally spaced, $\delta$-like pump pulses as, e.g., from an optical-frequency-comb laser. We show that, even though the probe pulse is not assumed to be much shorter than the pump pulses, light-induced states appear in the absorption spectrum. The frequency- and time-delay-dependent features of the absorption spectra are investigated as a function of several laser control parameters, such as the number of pump pulses used, their pulse area, and the pulse-to-pulse phase shift. We show that the frequencies of the light-induced states and the time-delay-dependent features of the spectra contain information on the action of the intense pulses exciting the system, which can thus complement the information on light-imposed amplitude and phase changes encoded in the absorption line shapes.