  We present an absorption study of the neutral and positively charged exciton
(trion) under the influence of a femtosecond, circularly polarized, resonant
pump pulse. Three populations are involved: free holes, excitons, and trions,
all exhibiting transient spin polarization. In particular, a polarization of
the hole gas is created by the formation of trions. The evolution of these
populations is studied, including the spin flip and trion formation processes.
The contributions of several mechanisms to intensity changes are evaluated,
including phase space filling and spin-dependent screening. We propose a new
explanation of the oscillator strength stealing phenomena observed in p-doped
quantum wells, based on the screening of neutral excitons by charge carriers.
We have also found that binding heavy holes into charged excitons excludes them
from the interaction with the rest of the system, so that oscillator strength
stealing is partially blocked
