It is demonstrated that, in the presence of collisions and for nonresonant lasers, it is energetically possible to access resonantly excited states and induce a coherence between the states. This situation cannot arise in the absence of collisions if the starting state does not decay. This explains why, when collisions are introduced, a new signal can be generated in a wave-mixing type of experiment. The collisionally induced generation of a coherent signal is intimately related to the process of collisional redistribution. It is shown that all the collisionally induced coherent signals that have been reported up to now involve putting real populations in the excited states. This fact has not always been fully appreciated. No resonance between unpopulated states can exist. The time dependence of these new coherent signals is briefly discussed. In the case of a Raman resonance between equally populated states, it is pointed out that new coherent pathways of equal importance should be considered for explaining the experimental results. A new pressure-induced signal in four-wave mixing is also discussed. It is called "collisionally triggered two-photon quasiresonant coherent signal."

• Received 17 December 1981

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.26.869