Physical Review A
Adiabatic passage on high-order multiphoton transitions
George N. Gibson
Abstract
Coherent interactions between light fields and simple quantum systems, such as $\ensuremath{\pi}$-pulses and adiabatic passage through frequency chirps and stimulated Raman interactions, generally use one- or two-photon processes. This limits the use of such interactions to energy scales close to the photon energy of the control field. However, recent calculations have shown that a 3-level system, generic to ionized diatomic molecules, shows such a strong multiphoton coupling that $\ensuremath{\pi}$-pulses are possible on at least 12-photon transitions. In this paper, we show that adiabatic transfer of population is also possible on such high-order multiphoton transitions. Full one-dimensional quantum mechanical two-electron calculations confirm this effect even in a system with many excited states and an ionization continuum.