Eur. Phys. J. D (2012) 66: 158
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2012-30135-0

Regular Article

Thermal bath effect on a left-handed three-level system

¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University College Station, 77843 Texas, USA
² University of Carthage, 1040 Tunis, Tunisia

^a e-mail: nboutabba@yahoo.fr

Received: 24 February 2012
Received in final form: 11 April 2012
Published online: 29 June 2012

Abstract

In this paper we consider a three level electromagnetically induced transparency atomic system under magneto-cross coupling effect. We investigate a theoretical study of the thermal bath effect on the electromagnetic properties of the system. We have shown that although the magneto-cross coupling effect induces chirality and enhances the ability to attain low absorption and negative refraction in left-handed media, the thermal bath has a considerable effect even at very low coupling strengths and causes the medium to lose its lefthanded properties.