Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-atomic-and-laser-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021/2/b/solution

Assume an initially unexcited chemical atom, two nonoverlapping square pulses starting at , and a common coherent field phase. In the weak-excitation limit , substitute into the second probability amplitude equation. After the second pulse,
where the sinc function means , with value one at zero. Squaring gives
The printed prefactor is a factor of four too small for the supplied equations and pulse durations. A direct counterexample is : the exact resonant Rabi oscillation gives for two pulses of duration , because the intervening resonant rotating-frame evolution is trivial. Its small-area limit is , rather than . The latter is the single-pulse result before coherent addition.
The condition printed in the source also does not justify the derivation from a physical carrier field. A consistent rotating-wave approximation pulse regime is
If the supplied equations are treated as the mathematical model regardless, their weak-excitation integral remains valid for any ; subcycle pulses of the original real field require the discarded counter-rotating term and depend on carrier phase. here is the separation of pulse starts, as specified, rather than the dark interval .

New to topics? Read the docs here!