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Title: Coherent excitation of a degenerate two-level system by an elliptically polarized laser pulse

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
 [1];  [2];  [3]
  1. Department of Physics, Sofia University, James Boucher 5 boulevard, 1164 Sofia (Bulgaria)
  2. Institute of Solid State Physics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Tsarigradsko chaussee 72, 1784 Sofia (Bulgaria)
  3. 618 Escondido Circle, Livermore, California 94550 (United States)

The elaborate linkage pattern of the interaction Hamiltonian descriptive of pulsed laser interaction of elliptically polarized light with a degenerate two-level system can, for coherent excitation, be reduced to sets of independent pairs of coupled two-state equations by means of the Morris-Shore transformation [Phys. Rev. A 27, 906 (1983)]. By extending the earlier defining work, which dealt only with time-independent interactions, to consider various pulse shapes, one can obtain exact analytic solutions to various multilevel linkages. We use these to find the conditions on the interaction parameters (e.g., the ellipticity) leading to various population transfer schemes, for example, to achieve either population inversion or orientation. We illustrate these with the M and W linkages amongst magnetic sublevels of J=1 or J=2 excited by elliptically polarized light.

OSTI ID:
20640509
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Vol. 68, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.68.063414; (c) 2003 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English