Reducing pulse distortion in fast-light pulse propagation through an erbium-doped fiber amplifier using a mutually incoherent background field

It was reported earlier that it is possible to obtain large pulse advancement with minimum pulse distortion in fast-light propagation through an erbium-doped fiber amplifier by placing the pulse on top of a mutually coherent constant background field. Here we show that comparable distortion reduction can be obtained through use of a mutually incoherent background field, a procedure that could be much more readily implemented under many circumstances. We also show that further improvement can be obtained by means of adjusting the pulse power, and for a pulse-power of the distortion decreases about 56% from 0.56 with no background while the fractional advancement decreases only about 3% from 0.16.