Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage among degenerate-level manifolds

Journal Article · Mon Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 2004 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.70.053405· OSTI ID:20646239

Kis, Z ^[1]; Karpati, A ^[1]; Shore, B W ^[2]; Vitanov, N V ^[2]

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1. HAS Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, P.O. Box 49, H-1525 Budapest (Hungary)
2. Fachbereich Physik der Universitaet Kaiserslautern, 67653 Kaiserslautern (Germany)

We examine the conditions needed to accomplish stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) when the three levels (ground g, excited e, and final f) are degenerate, with arbitrary couplings contributing to the pump-pulse interaction (g-e) and to the Stokes-pulse interaction (e-f). We show that in general a sufficient condition for complete population removal from the g set of degenerate states for arbitrary, pure or mixed, initial state is that the degeneracies should not decrease along the sequence g, e, and f. Using a sequence of unitary transformations we demonstrate that when this condition holds it is possible to achieve the degenerate counterpart of conventional STIRAP, whereby adiabatic passage produces complete population transfer. Indeed, the system is equivalent to a set of independent three-state systems, in each of which a STIRAP procedure can be implemented. We also examine the cases when this degeneracy constraint does not hold and show what can be accomplished in those cases. For example, for angular momentum states when the degeneracy of the g and f levels is less than that of the e level we show how a special choice for the pulse polarizations and phases can produce complete removal of population from the g set. Our scheme can be a powerful tool for coherent control in degenerate systems, because of its robustness, when selective addressing of the states is not required or impossible. We illustrate the analysis with several analytically solvable examples, in which the degeneracies originate from angular momentum orientation, as expressed by magnetic sublevels.

• OSTI ID: 20646239
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 70; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
CONTROL
COUPLING
EXCITED STATES
GROUND STATES
OPTICAL PUMPING
ORIENTATION
PHOTON-ATOM COLLISIONS
POLARIZATION
POPULATION INVERSION
PULSES
RAMAN EFFECT
TRANSFORMATIONS
VISIBLE RADIATION