title: Nonlinearly induced relaxation to the ground state in a two-level system.
abstract: We report the experimental demonstration of a nonlinear process in a two-level system, in which the amplitude of the excited state decays, transferring irreversibly a large fraction of its energy to the ground state, while shedding a part of it into radiation states. The experiments where preformed in a nonlinear optical waveguide, supporting two or three modes. The process is general, and is expected to occur in other nonlinear few level systems such as nonlinear quantum wells and Bose-Einstein condensates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics of Complex Systems, the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mandelik
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lahini
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Silberberg