Coherent dynamics ofN-level atoms and molecules. I. Numerical experiments

Abstract

We study numerically the solution to Schrödinger's equation for the radiative interaction of fictitious $N$-level model atomic and molecular systems with monochromatic radiation fields. The numerical method of solution allows us to study multiphoton transitions in $N$-level systems unhampered by the assumptions usually adopted, such as weak fields or large detunings of intermediate states, in perturbative and quasiperturbative analytic studies. We point out regularities and near regularities in the population dynamics that appear to be qualitatively different from those encountered in two- and three-level systems.