Gain and Absorption of a Probe Light in an Open Tripod Atomic System

We theoretically investigate an open four-level atomic system interacting with control, probe and microwave fields. When there is no repumping light and a microwave field is applied, the probe light can be absorbed or amplified, which has different features than those of a system whose populations are pumped into only one ground state. In this system the microwave field and the population distributions of the ground states can be used as switches to control the propagation of the probe light.