Investigation of shifts and interaction of signals in high-contrast transmission spectroscopy

In the recently introduced high-contrast transmission version of saturated absorption laser spectroscopy, narrow signals are obtained from dense atomic samples subject to strong pumping. A study of possible systematic shifts of the signals in this domain of rather extreme experimental conditions was performed in order to assess the validity of spectroscopic data obtained with this technique. Certain signal components were found to be slightly shifted while others were not. Further, a theoretical study of the behaviour of overlapping signals in the high-contrast regime is presented. In particular, the question of whether structures buried under the natural linewidth could be resolved is addressed. (orig.)