Optical resonance and two-level atoms (Interscience monographs and texts in physics and astronomy, v. 28)

The intention of this book is to concentrate on the physical essentials of resonance phenomena. Therefore we have not discussed the details of the most recent experimental and theoretical work in the field. For our purposes the phenomenologically dampened optical Bloch equations are adequate to express the response of near resonant atoms to an applied field. Similarly, the classical Maxwell wave equation for the electric field is entirely sufficient to describe a wide range of absorption and amplification effects. In effect, we have simply explored and interpreted at a level requiring little sophistication, many of the consequences of coupling the Bloch and Maxwell equations.