Anomalous light propagation and continuous lasing without inversion in an open driven $V$-system

Abstract

We explore a driven three-level $V$-system coupled to an environment with dynamics governed by the Lindblad master equation. We perform a transformation into superoperator space, which brings the Lindblad equation into a Schr\"{o}dinger-like, thus allowing us to obtain an exact analytical solution for the time-dependence of the density matrix in a closed form. We demonstrate a regime for continuous lasing without inversion for driving with a continuous wave laser. We show a mechanism for achieving superluminal, negative, and vanishing light pulse group velocities and provide a range of physical parameters for realizing these regimes experimentally