title: Bose-stimulated raman adiabatic passage in photoassociation
abstract: We analyze coherent two-color photoassociation of a Bose-Einstein condensate, focusing on stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) in free-bound-bound transitions from atoms to molecules. This problem raises an interest because STIRAP has been predicted to be absent in the nondegenerate case [Javanainen and Mackie, Phys. Rev. A 58, R789 (1998)]. Nevertheless, we find that Bose stimulation enhances the free-bound dipole matrix element for an atomic condensate, and photoassociative STIRAP turns out to be a viable mechanism for converting an atomic condensate to a molecular condensate with near-unit efficiency.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-3046, USA.
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mackie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kowalski
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Javanainen