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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Effect of the Bloch - Siegert shift in a strongly driven transition: asymmetric Autler - Townes profile

Changjiang Wei, Scott A. Holmstrom, Matthew J. Sellars, Neil B. Manson, Z. Ficek

Published Jun 14, 1997• 14 citations

Abstract

Under the conditions of the rotating wave approximation (RWA), a transition strongly driven by a resonant oscillating field displays the well known symmetric Autler - Townes doublet. However, if the counter-rotating component, neglected in the RWA, is taken into account, the Bloch - Siegert shift gives rise to an Autler - Townes doublet of unequal intensity even in the case of a resonant driving field. This effect is investigated theoretically in a V-shaped three-level double-resonance configuration and the results are presented in this paper. An interesting observation is that the level of asymmetry not only depends on the driving-field intensity but also on the characteristics of the driven system including relaxation rates and equilibrium population distributions.

DOI: 10.1088/0953-4075/30/11/022

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Analytic expressions for Autler-Townes transitions in the presence of a linearly polarized pump field

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Analytic expressions for the peak positions and pump frequency shift of equal intensity weak probe Autler-Townes transitions to a third level in the presence of a linearly polarized pump field are given. It is found that the presence of the third level affects the pump field dressing of the strongly excited two levels. A comparison of the Bloch-Siegert shift estimated by this weak probe technique with earlier methods suggests this condition provides a practical method for obtaining the Bloch-Siegert shift for three level systems where the pump field does not directly excite the probe transition. If the pump field off-resonantly drives the probe transition, additional light shifts occur which may dominate the Bloch-Siegert shift.

Physical Review A•Mar 1, 1998•4 citations

Under the conditions of the rotating wave approximation (RWA), a transition strongly driven by a resonant oscillating field displays the well known symmetric Autler - Townes doublet. However, if the counter-rotating component, neglected in the RWA, is taken into account, the Bloch - Siegert shift gives rise to an Autler - Townes doublet of unequal intensity even in the case of a resonant driving field. This effect is investigated theoretically in a V-shaped three-level double-resonance configuration and the results are presented in this paper. An interesting observation is that the level of asymmetry not only depends on the driving-field intensity but also on the characteristics of the driven system including relaxation rates and equilibrium population distributions.

The effect of the Bloch–Siegert shift on a strongly driven transition is studied in a three-level double-resonance configuration and the result is presented in this paper. We show that when a resonantly driven transition is probed to a third level, the Bloch–Siegert shift leads to an asymmetric Autler–Townes doublet. An important conclusion is that the asymmetry depends only on the driving field intensity, in contrast to a previous study where it is reported that the asymmetry depends not only on the driving field intensity but also on the characteristics of the three-level system. Our result implies an alternative way of measuring the Bloch–Siegert shift.

Abstract We study the resonance and dynamics of a three-level V-type system strongly driven by a quasiperiodic bichromatic field by making use of a unitary-transformation (UT) method. The UT is used to construct a periodic effective Hamiltonian which incorporates the effects of counter-rotating couplings and takes a physically transparent form, and the Floquet theory is used to calculate transition probabilities. By comparing the UT results with those from the rotating-wave approximation (RWA) and generalized Floquet theory, we illustrate that the UT method captures not only accurate resonance structures but also dynamics of the driven V system in a strong-driving regime where the RWA breaks down. We show that there are two dynamical features, namely, peak-dip structures and beat behaviors, which are ascribed to a time-dependent coupling between the two upper levels due to the counter-rotating terms and cannot be described by a RWA Hamiltonian. Moreover, we show that the effective Hamiltonian can be used to calculate higher-order Bloch–Siegert shifts, which is another feature caused by the counter-rotating terms. Present work offers insights into the role of counter-rotating couplings in a bichromatically driven three-level system.

Analytic expressions for the peak positions and pump frequency shift of equal intensity weak probe Autler-Townes transitions to a third level in the presence of a linearly polarized pump field are given. It is found that the presence of the third level affects the pump field dressing of the strongly excited two levels. A comparison of the Bloch-Siegert shift estimated by this weak probe technique with earlier methods suggests this condition provides a practical method for obtaining the Bloch-Siegert shift for three level systems where the pump field does not directly excite the probe transition. If the pump field off-resonantly drives the probe transition, additional light shifts occur which may dominate the Bloch-Siegert shift.