pith. sign in

arxiv: quant-ph/0011018 · v1 · submitted 2000-11-04 · 🪐 quant-ph

Optical Transition and Momentum Transfer in Atomic Wave Packets

classification 🪐 quant-ph
keywords momentumrabi-floppingsatomatomicenergyexcitedgroundlevel
0
0 comments X
read the original abstract

It is shown that the population Rabi-floppings in a lossless two-level atom, interacting with a monochromatic electromagnetic field, in general are convergent in time. The well-known continuous floppings take place because the restricted choosing of initial conditions, that is when the atom initially is chosen on ground or excited level before the interaction, simultaneously having a definite value of momentum there. The convergence of Rabi-floppings in atomic wave-packet-states is a direct consequence of Doppler effect on optical transition rates (Rabi-frequencies): it gradually leads to ''irregular'' chaotic-type distributions of momentum in ground and excited energy levels, smearing the amplitudes of Rabi-floppings. Conjointly with Rabi-floppings, the coherent accumulation of momentum on each internal energy level monotonically diminishes too.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.