Damped Rabi oscillations produced by adiabatic pulses in atomic systems

Propagation of optical pulses in adiabatic conditions in two-level systems was reported to induce Rabi oscillations if the initial state has atomic coherence. This is a surprising result since in ordinary conditions the population dynamics follows the temporal field profile. In this paper we construct a simple two-level atom model and examine the role of Rabi oscillations in the presence of a damping γ term (decoherence). We have found that, depending on the time scale between 1∕γ and the pulse, Rabi oscillations are still present. However, if the atom decays faster than when the interaction takes place, Rabi oscillations are suppressed. Analytical solutions are also provided for this general case.