Observation of Sub-femtosecond Polarization Beats Using Twin Noisy Driving Fields

We study the phase-conjugate polarization interference in a V-type three-level system and obtain an analytic closed form for the second-order stochastic correlation of sum-frequency polarization beat. In our Na vapour atomic system pumped by laser pulse of nano-second timescale duration, we experimentally demonstrate an ultrafast modulation of the four-wave mixing signal intensity with a sub-femtosecond timescale period, corresponding to the sum-frequency of the resonant transitions from 3S_1/2 to 3P_1/2 and 3P_3/2.