When a resonant laser sent on an optically thick cold atomic cloud is abruptly switched off, a coherent flash of light is emitted in the forward direction. This transient phenomenon is observed due to the highly resonant character of the atomic scatterers. We analyze quantitatively its temporal properties and show very good agreement with theoretical predictions. Based on complementary experiments, the phase of the coherent field is reconstructed without interferometric tools.
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Chalony et al. (2011) studied this question.
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