Pulse Shape Effects in Nonadiabatic Transitions

V. B. Nagaev, Vladimir I. Osherov

F. A. Hashmi, M. A. Bouchène

A strong nonresonant, asymmetric ultrashort pulse drives an atomic transition and causes a complete population inversion because of a sudden nonadiabatic jump. This jump is probed in real time by propagating a weak ultrashort pulse in the system which is resonant on an adjacent transition. The probe at the exit of the medium presents an oscillatory structure with the nonadiabatic jump marked in time by the onset of oscillations. The nonadiabatic jump thus acts as a ``turn-on'' switch for the shaping of the probe.

N. A. Chigir

G. S. Vasilev, Axel Kuhn, Nikolay V. Vitanov

Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) driven with pulses of optimum shape and delay has the potential of reaching fidelities high enough to make it suitable for quantum-information processing. The optimum pulse shapes are obtained upon reduction of STIRAP to effective two-state systems. We use the Dykhne-Davis-Pechukas (DDP) method to minimize nonadiabatic transitions and to maximize the fidelity of STIRAP. This results in a particular relation between the pulse shapes of the two fields driving the Raman process. The DDP-optimized version of STIRAP maintains its robustness against variations in the pulse intensities and durations, the single-photon detuning, and possible losses from the intermediate state.

P. R. Berman, Lixin Yan, Keng-Hwee Chiam +1 more

The problem of a two-level atom interacting with a radiation pulse is studied in the limit that the atom-field detuning times the pulse duration is much greater than unity. Owing to the large atom-field detuning, transitions result from nonadiabatic coupling of the states by the field. The transition probability for the atom to be excited following the pulse is studied as a function of field strength for five different pulse shapes: hyperbolic secant, Lorentzian, hyperbolic secant squared, Lorentzian squared, and Gaussian. It is shown that the behavior of the transition probability differs qualitatively for these pulses. An explanation of this qualitative difference is given in terms of the Massey parameter. Numerical solutions are compared with asymptotic solutions and several anomalies are noted. In the limit of large field strength, a universal expression for the transition probability is found. An interesting feature of the solutions is that, in the limit of very large field strengths, the transition probability for a Gaussian pulse can approach unity despite the fact that the pulse has an exponentially small Fourier amplitude at the atom-field detuning. This apparent violation of the energy-time uncertainty principle is explained in terms of the nonlinear atom-field interactions.

V. A. Bazylev, Nick K. Zhevago, M. I. Chibisov