Effect of a Sinusoidal Excitation Amplitude on the Performance of an Atomic-Beam Spectrometer

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Abstract
A theoretical analysis has been made of the transition probabilities for a Rabi-type atomic-beam spectrometer in which the exciting field amplitude seen by the atoms has a sinusoidal rather than a rectangular envelope. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation was integrated numerically and a velocity average of the transition probabilities performed. The results indicate that the linewidth increases as the fourth root of the excitation power and that frequency shifts due to coupling of the exciting field with other atomic states are reduced by an order of magnitude at excitation powers much above optimum.