Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-atomic-and-laser-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2021/2/b/solution
Past exam of the atomic and laser physics course of the University of Oxford 2021 2 b Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
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 givesThe 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 isIf 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 .
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