2001/05/11 by Sébastien Zamith, Sebastien Zamith, J. Degert +10 · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #physics.atom-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.87.033001
4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in PRL
arxiv created 2001/05/11 · openalex publication_date 2001/06/28 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The effects of coherent excitation of a two-level system with a linearly chirped pulse are studied theoretically and experimentally [in Rb (5s-5p)] in the low field regime. The coherent transients are measured directly on the excited state population on an ultrashort time scale. A sharp step corresponds to the passage through resonance. It is followed by oscillations resulting from interferences between off-resonant and resonant contributions. We finally show the equivalence between this experiment and Fresnel diffraction by a sharp edge.