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Raman transitions: Adiabatic elimination revisited

Vanessa Paulisch, Rui Han, Hui Khoon Ng, Berthold‐Georg Englert

Published Sep 28, 2012• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

In multi-level systems, the commonly used adiabatic elimination is a method for approximating the dynamics of the system by eliminating irrelevant, non-resonantly coupled levels. This procedure is, however, somewhat ambiguous and it is not clear how to improve on it systematically. We use an integro-differential equation for the probability amplitudes of the levels of interest, which is equivalent to the original Schrodinger equation for all probability amplitudes. In conjunction with a Markov approximation, the integro-differential equation is then used to generate a hierarchy of approximations, in which the zeroth order is the adiabatic-elimination approximation. It works well with a proper choice of interaction picture; the procedure suggests criteria for optimizing this choice. The first-order approximation in the hierarchy provides significant improvements over standard adiabatic elimination, without much increase in complexity, and is furthermore not so sensitive to the choice of interaction picture. We illustrate these points with several examples.

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In multi-level systems, the commonly used adiabatic elimination is a method for approximating the dynamics of the system by eliminating irrelevant, non-resonantly coupled levels. This procedure is, however, somewhat ambiguous and it is not clear how to improve on it systematically. We use an integro-differential equation for the probability amplitudes of the levels of interest, which is equivalent to the original Schrodinger equation for all probability amplitudes. In conjunction with a Markov approximation, the integro-differential equation is then used to generate a hierarchy of approximations, in which the zeroth order is the adiabatic-elimination approximation. It works well with a proper choice of interaction picture; the procedure suggests criteria for optimizing this choice. The first-order approximation in the hierarchy provides significant improvements over standard adiabatic elimination, without much increase in complexity, and is furthermore not so sensitive to the choice of interaction picture. We illustrate these points with several examples.
Driven Raman processes — nearly resonant two-photon transitions through an intermediate state that is non-resonantly coupled and does not acquire a sizeable population — are commonly treated with a simplified description in which the intermediate state is removed by adiabatic elimination. While the adiabatic-elimination approximation is reliable when the detuning of the intermediate state is quite large, it cannot be trusted in other situations, and it does not allow one to estimate the population in the eliminated state. We introduce an alternative method that keeps all states in the description, without increasing the complexity by much. An integro-differential equation of Lippmann-Schwinger type generates a hierarchy of approximations, but very accurate results are already obtained in the lowest order.
Driven Raman processes – nearly resonant two-photon transitions through an intermediate state that is non-resonantly coupled and does not acquire a sizeable population – are commonly treated with a simplified description in which the intermediate state is removed by adiabatic elimination. While the adiabatic-elimination approximation is reliable when the detuning of the intermediate state is quite large, it cannot be trusted in other situations, and it does not allow one to estimate the population in the eliminated state. We introduce an alternative method that keeps all states in the description, without increasing the complexity by much. An integro-differential equation of Lippmann–Schwinger type generates a hierarchy of approximations, but very accurate results are already obtained in the lowest order.
We introduce the prodiabatic elimination, a powerful approximation technique that systematically extends the adiabatic elimination of fast degrees of freedom in light-matter coupled systems. Through a controlled expansion of operators, the prodiabatic elimination incorporates higher-order corrections and consistently includes noise contributions, leading to a significantly improved performance compared to standard adiabatic elimination. Importantly, it retains the simplicity and computational efficiency of the adiabatic elimination, making it convenient for practical applications. We demonstrate the approach on two setups: a driven dissipative Jaynes-Cummings model and a three-level system in a two-mode cavity that performs stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). These examples establish the prodiabatic elimination as a robust and broadly applicable tool for analyzing open quantum systems.
Various approaches have been used in the literature for eliminating nonresonant levels in atomic systems and deriving effective Hamiltonians. Important among these are elimination techniques at the level of probability amplitudes, operator techniques to project the dynamics on to the subspace of resonant levels, Green’s function techniques, the James’ effective Hamiltonian approach, etc. None of the previous approaches is suitable for deriving effective Hamiltonians in intracavity situations. However, the James’ approach does work in the case of only two-photon transitions in a cavity. A generalization of the James’ approach works in the case of three-photon transitions in a cavity, but only under Raman-like resonant conditions. Another important approach for adiabatic elimination is based on an adaptation of the Markov approximation well-known in the theory of system–bath interactions. However, this approach has not been shown to work in intracavity situations. In this paper, we present a method of adiabatic elimination for atoms inside cavities in the presence of multiphoton transitions. We work in the Heisenberg picture, and our approach has the advantage that it allows one to derive effective Hamiltonians even when Raman-like resonance conditions do not hold.
A Schrödinger equation may be unitarily transformed into dynamical equations in different interaction pictures which describe a common physical process, i.e., the same underlying interactions and dynamics. In contrast to this standard scenario, other relations are also possible, such as a common interaction-picture dynamical equation corresponding to several Schrödinger equations that represent different physical processes. This may enable us to design alternative and feasible experimental routes for operations that are a priori difficult or impossible to perform. The power of this concept is exemplified by engineering Hamiltonians that improve the performance or make realizable several shortcuts to adiabaticity.