Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage analogs in classical physics

TL;DR

This paper explores classical physics analogs of the quantum STIRAP technique, demonstrating how similar adiabatic transfer phenomena occur in classical systems like charged particles and magnetic moments, showing robustness and counterintuitive pulse ordering.

Contribution

It introduces classical analogs of STIRAP, linking quantum adiabatic passage to classical dynamics such as Lorentz force motion and magnetic moment orientation.

Findings

Classical analogs exhibit counterintuitive pulse ordering.

These phenomena are robust against small parameter variations.

Analogous effects occur in systems like charged particles and magnetic moments.

Abstract

Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) is a well established technique for producing coherent population transfer in a three-state quantum system. We here exploit the resemblance between the Schrodinger equation for such a quantum system and the Newton equation of motion for a classical system undergoing torque to discuss several classical analogs of STIRAP, notably the motion of a moving charged particle subject to the Lorentz force of a quasistatic magnetic field, the orientation of a magnetic moment in a slowly varying magnetic field, the Coriolis effect and the inertial frame dragging effect. Like STIRAP, those phenomena occur for counterintuitively ordered field pulses and are robustly insensitive to small changes in the interaction properties.