Effect of spontaneous emission and recombination on the four-wave-mixing profiles involving autoionizing resonances

Abstract

A general expression for the four-wave—mixing profiles in situations involving autoionizing resonances is derived by taking fully into account the spontaneous-emission characteristics of the autoionizing states. The signals are valid for arbitrary values of Fano asymmetry parameters, field strengths, and spontaneous-emission rates. The dramatic increase in the four-wave—mixing signal for field strengths corresponding to the confluence is demonstrated. The spontaneous emission is shown to affect the line shapes not only in weak fields but also in strong fields. The effects of spontaneous emission are found to be most important for field strengths corresponding to confluence which is similar to the problem of laser-induced autoionization.