A perturbative view from the master equation: Electromagnetically induced transparency revisited*

We show that by treating the weak probe field as a perturbation to the strong coupling
fields in the atomic system and using the perturbative method in a master equation, the features of
linear response of phenomena of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) can be uniformly
demonstrated, regardless of the details of atomic energy level configuration. We compare our
estimation with both typical and atypical EIT-observed configurations and find that our model
indeed provides a description of the sharp transmission window in central area of typical EIT curve.
It can also be inferred hereby that for various systems other than atomic gas, as long as the description
of the system’s dynamics comes down to the simplified form of master equation, the corresponding
EIT analogs and EIT-like phenomena can also be explained in this way.