Adiabatic creation of coherent superposition states via multiple intermediatestates

Abstract

We consider an adiabatic population transfer process that resembles the well-establishedstimulated Raman adiabatic passage. In our system, the states have nonzero angularmomentums J,therefore, the coupling laser fields induce transitions between the magnetic sublevelsof the states. In particular, we discuss the possibility of creating coherentsuperposition states in a system with coupling pattern J = 0 ⇔ 1 and 1 ⇔ 2. Initially, thesystem is in the J = 0state. We show that by, applying two delayed overlapping laser pulses, it is possibleto create any final superposition state of the magnetic sublevels |2, −2⟩, |2, 0⟩, |2, +2⟩.Moreover, we find that the relative phases of the applied pulses influence not onlythe phases of the final superposition state but also the probability amplitudes. Weshow that if we fix the shape and the time delay between the pulses, the finalstate space can be entirely covered by varying the polarizations and relativephases of the two pulses. Performing numerical simulations we find that ourtransfer process is nearly adiabatic for the whole parameter set.