Pulse-shape Effects in Intense-field Laser Excitation of Atoms

Abstract
A time-development operator technique is used to describe the intense-field excitation of three-level atomic systems by laser pulses of arbitrary shape. The pulses are divided into small elements for which the time-development is described using the first term in the Magnus expansion. The effects of pulse shapes, detunings, atomic decays and Doppler widths can be included in the analysis. We demonstrate the sensitivity of the dressed three-level atom state populations, Rabi oscillations, population trapping and Autler-Townes splittings on laser pulse shapes.