Abstract
The discussion up to here has focused on the two-level atom problem where the light field couples a single ground and excited state. In practice atoms have many levels, and in general the light field couples more than two levels at the same time. Two-level atoms are often discussed in the literature because it is straightforward to obtain analytical results. Such solutions provide much insight and understanding that cannot be obtained from the numerical solutions required for more complicated atoms.
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Metcalf, H.J., van der Straten, P. (1999). Multilevel Atoms. In: Laser Cooling and Trapping. Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1470-0_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1470-0_4
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-98728-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-1470-0
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