Electromagnetically induced transparency with spectator momenta

Summary form only given.The prototype situation for both coherent population trapping and electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) occurs in an ideal three-state atom. We show that, to obtain transparency and near unity refractive index, instead of tuning the lasers to a Ramanlike subset of the split transitions, one should tune the lasers to the centers of gravity of the splittings that are caused by the spectator momentum. We also report the first demonstration of EIT with pulsed lasers in an optically thick sample of atoms which exhibit hyperfine structure using this approach. We obtain the real and imaginary parts of the dipole moment for the multistate system by weak probe perturbation theory and numerical simulations.