Entangled Radiation through an Atomic Reservoir Controlled by Coherent Population Trapping

We show that it is possible to generate Einstein--Podolsky--Rosen (EPR) entangled radiation using an atomic reservoir controlled by coherent population trapping. A beam of three-level atoms is initially prepared in near-coherent population trapping (CPT) state and acts as a long-lived coherence-controlled reservoir. Four-wave mixing leads to amplification of cavity modes resonant with Rabi sidebands of the atomic dipole transitions. The cavity modes evolve into an EPR state, whose degree of entanglement is controlled by the intensities and the frequencies of the driving fields. This scheme uses the long-lived CPT coherence and is robust against spontaneous emission of the atomic beam. At the same time, this scheme is implemented in a one-step procedure, not in a two-step procedure as was required in Phys. Rev. Lett. 98(2007)240401.