In the first part of the course we introduce de idea of the density matrix and of the optical Bloch equations which govern its evolution. We discuss various sources of dissipation in ant atomic system and show how it can be understood as a partial trace over some of the degrees of freedom in the density matrix. In the first part we study some important stationary or nearly stationary situations: laser cooling and electromagnetically induced transparency.

In the second part of the course we treat the regime of rapidly varying field envelopes where it is necessary to take into account the spectral response of a system. The Kramers-Kronig relations play an important role. We develop perturbative methods to treat time dependent problems.



Last Modification : Monday 12 September 2011