Photon lifetime in a cavity containing a slow-light medium

T. Lauprêtre, C. Proux, R. Ghosh, S. Schwartz, F. Goldfarb, F. Bretenaker
2011 Optics Letters  
We investigate experimentally the lifetime of the photons in a cavity containing a medium exhibiting strong positive dispersion. This intracavity positive dispersion is provided by a metastable helium gas at room temperature in the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) regime, in which light propagates at a group velocity of the order of 10000 m/s. The results definitely prove that the lifetime of the cavity photons is governed by the group velocity of light in the cavity, and not its phase velocity.
doi:10.1364/ol.36.001551 pmid:21540924 fatcat:sqvhqf2jfrabrdgwg4jvbrlm64