Multimode model of the formation of molecular Bose-Einstein condensates by Bose-stimulated Raman adiabatic passage

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Abstract
We investigate the conversion of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) of a weakly interacting gas into a molecular BEC (MBEC) by Bose-stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). This method of producing an MBEC does not experience large spontaneous losses while the condensate is in an excited electronic state, and it is robust with respect to small changes in the physical parameters. We show that the atomic interactions affect the quantum statistics of the resulting field, although they do not interfere with the production of the MBEC. We demonstrate that STIRAP is still feasible when we include the spatial degrees of freedom that cause the Bose-enhanced coupling rate to vary across the condensate. The complete conversion is destroyed by spatial effects unless the time scale of the coupling is much faster than the propagation time, which in practice requires submillisecond conversion.