Resonance enhancement of two photon absorption by magnetically trapped atoms in strong rf-fields

Abstract

Applying a many mode Floquet formalism for magnetically trapped atoms interacting with a polychromatic rf-field, we predict a large two photon transition probability in the atomic system of cold 87 Rb atoms. The physical origin of this enormous increase in the two photon transition probability is due to the formation of avoided crossings between eigen-energy levels originating from different Floquet sub-manifolds and redistribution of population in the resonant intermediate levels to give rise to the resonance enhancement effect. Other exquisite features of the studied atom-field composite system include the splitting of the generated avoided crossings at the strong field strength limit and a periodic variation of the single and two photon transition probabilities with the mode separation frequency of the polychromatic rf-field. This work can find applications to characterize properties of cold atom clouds in the magnetic traps using rf-spectroscopy techniques.