Influence of dephasing on the Akaike-information- criterion distinguishing of quantum interference and Autler–Townes splitting in coherent systems

Electromagnetically induced transparency is a quantum interference (QI) effect in a coherent system, in which the similar but distinct effect of Autler–Townes splitting (ATS) without QI also happens concurrently. The Akaike information criterion (AIC) has been proven to be an efficient and objective method to discern them by evaluating their relative AIC weights for different Rabi frequencies of the coupling field. Here, we investigate in detail the influence of the dephasing effect on the AIC weights of QI and ATS, and present the transition among destructive QI, constructive QI, and ATS without QI by controlling the dephasing rates. By comparing the effects of different dephasing rates on the QI and ATS weights, we show that the field-phase-diffusion dephasing provides more feasibility than the atom-collision dephasing in control of QI and ATS. Therefore, precise and selective dephasing engineering can be realized by manipulating the linewidths and phase correlation of the fields. This indicates that various collision-related effects (e.g., collision-dephasing-induced coherences) can be experimentally studied using more controllable field-phase-diffusion dephasing instead of buffer-gas-controlling collision dephasing.