Superluminal to Subluminal Transition in the Pulse Propagation in a Resonantly Absorbing Medium

We have examined the propagation of femtosecond laser pulses in an absorbing dye solution through a short to a long range of propagation distance. The transmitted pulses show strong spectral shift and a superluminal to subluminal transition in the propagation velocity keeping its initial shape almost intact. It is verified that the peak velocity is well described by a modified group velocity $v_S$ defined within the framework of the saddle-point method as well as by a recent prediction of the net group delay of surviving frequency.