Propagation of optical pulses in a resonantly absorbing medium: Observation of negative velocity in Rb vapor

Propagation of optical pulses in a resonantly absorbing medium is studied. Propagation time of nanosecond pulses was measured for the Rb D₁ transition. At the center of two absorption lines, delay of the pulse peak which is about ten times as large as the pulse width was observed, where zero delay is defined for the propagation with the light velocity in vacuum. On the other hand, at the peak of an absorption line, negative delay was observed for large absorption, where the advance time is as large as 25% of the pulse width. Simulation including the effect of absorption and phase shift reproduced well the experimental results.