A dense collection of two-level atoms embedded in a dielectric medium in a ring cavity

The hysteresis behavior of a dense collection of two-level atoms embedded in a linear dielectric medium in an optical cavity is investigated theoretically in terms of a parametric formulation method under the thin-sample approximation. The relation of the output intensity to the input intensity is obtained in an explicit formula. The numerical results show that the hysteresis behavior and the cavity transmission are different from those in vacuum because of the local-field enhancement and the local cooperative decay effect. Received: 27 June 2000 / Revised version: 11 September 2000 / Published online: 10 January 2001