Ground-state coherence induced oscillations in a three-level system

The interaction of a three-level atomic medium with two degenerate sublevels in the ground-state with a coherent radiation field in a ring cavity is investigated. We pay specific attention to atomic coherence within the ground-state doublet, considering separate decay rates for the ground-state coherence and the population difference. In a previous paper we presented the stationary solutions and here we report on self-pulsing solutions. At critical intensities of the input field, the partially stable symmetry-breaking branches give rise to Hopf bifurcations. Furthermore, we observe in a limiting case of the limit cycles solitary solutions. The associated diverging periods show an interesting power law behaviour.Work supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation