Area evolution of a few-cycle pulse laser in a two-level-atom medium

By solving the Maxwell-Bloch equations, we study the area evolution of a few-cycle pulse laser propagating in a resonant two-level-atom medium. We find that in short propagation distance, the pulse envelope, obtained within the slowly varying envelope approximation and the rotating-wave approximation, agrees nicely with the carrier field. In this case, the area theorem can still predict the profile of the area evolution of a few-cycle optical pulse. However, contrary to the long-pulse case, the variation of the few-cycle pulse area is caused by the pulse splitting but not by the pulse broadening or the pulse compression. Furthermore, the negative area occurs when the pulse area decreases. As a result, a pulse with area less than pi is not absorbed rapidly according to the usual Beer's law of absorption but evolves to nonvanishing zero pi pulse.