Generation Optical Beating between Hyperfine levels in the Decay of Rb atoms Excited by Different Pulse Shapes.

We are investigating quantum interference in the atomic decay signal in a dilute thermal atomic gas with an intense pulsed laser beam. A short pulse of laser light (~ 3 ns) is used to drive atoms from the ground state to an excited state hyperfine manifold of levels. We are exploring how quantum beating and other excitation properties depend on the shape of the driving frequency (e.g., cw, chirped, white-noise, etc).