Squeezing of thermal fluctuations in four-wave mixing in a \Lambda-scheme

Abstract

We theoretically investigate the mechanism of two-mode quadrature squeezing in regime of four-wave mixing in a \Lambda-scheme of three-level atoms embedded in a thermal reservoir. We demonstrate that the process of nonlinear transfer of noise from the low frequency of ground state splitting to the optical frequency drastically modifies the condition of effective two-mode squeezing. The damage factor is significant if number of thermal photons at the low frequency is high and the role of inelastic processes in ground state coherence decay is not negligible. We found the optimal conditions for squeezing, in particular optimal density-length product of active medium depending on the relaxation parameters and drive intensity.