PHYSICAL PROCESSES IN ACTIVE MEDIA: Spectral and kinetic manifestations of a phase memory in collisions during interaction of radiation with a Lorentz gas

A study is reported of the influence of a phase memory in the presence of collisions on the work done by a field and on a light-induced drift of two-level gas particles in the Lorentz model of a gas (heavy buffer particles). It is shown that a phase memory may result in amplification of the incident radiation by particles at certain velocities in the absence of a population inversion (when practically all the particles are in the ground state). A phase memory is shown to have a strong influence on the light-induced drift if the collision frequency is much higher than the Doppler width of an absorption line: the drift calculated ignoring the influence of a phase memory may be strongly underestimated.