Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2006/iii/paper-60/5/a/solution

Work with real positive pulse envelopes and define . Then and . In the ordered basis , the candidate dark state of a driven Hamiltonian has coordinates
Multiplication by the given rotating-wave approximation matrix gives
Thus
Its absence of an excited-state component is the destructive interference that makes it dark. The orthogonal bright ground-state combination is . Since and , the two remaining eigenstates are with eigenvalues .
For signed envelopes, use a continuous two-argument angle with and , rather than an ambiguous arctangent branch. When both fields vanish, every state has zero eigenvalue and this formula does not select a unique dark vector.

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