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Spectral dependence of nonlinear radiation trapping in high density atomic vapor
We report an experimental study of nonlinear radiation trapping in a high-density rubidium vapor where the self-broadening of the resonance transitions 5S1/2 − 5P3/2 exceeded the Doppler broadening. The atomic number densities used were N1 = 3 × 10^16 cm^−3 and N2 = 8 × 10^16 cm^−3. In our experiment, a signal of retro-fluorescence was recorded. By means of scanning a single mode laser near the resonance transition, spectral dependence of the effective radiative lifetime was measured with different values of the excitation optical power. Growth of the effective radiative lifetime with increasing power was observed. Within the framework of a simple model, it was shown that incoherent optical saturation can be increased by the number of photon absorption-reemission in the radiation transfer process. Further experiments are suggested.