Transient properties of modified reservoir-induced transparency - art. no.055802

We investigate the transient response of a Lambda-type system with one tran sition decaying to a modified radiation reservoir with an inverse square-ro ot singular density of modes at threshold, under conditions of transparency . We calculate the time evolution of the linear susceptibility for the prob e laser field and show that, depending on the strength of the coupling to t he modified vacuum and the background decay, the probe transmission can exh ibit behavior ranging from underdamped to overdamped oscillations. Transien t gain without population inversion is also possible depending on the syste m's parameters.