Abstract

The interaction of a pair of pulses with 3-level ⋀- type atoms as shown in Fig. 1 is discussed in terms of time-dependent coupled and decoupled superpositions |±〉 of the lower levels. In the adiabatic limit, only the “bright” state | +〉 is coupled to the upper level | a〉 with the Rabi-frequency Ω = √Ω12+Ω22. Non-adiabatic corrections show up in an additional coupling between the “dark” state | ^—〉 and | +〉 (Fig. 2) characterised by the formal Rabi-frequency

© 1996 Optical Society of America