Photoassociation of cold atoms with chirped laser pulses: Time-dependent calculations and analysis of the adiabatic transfer within a two-state model

The possibility offered by replacing continous lasers by chirped laser pulses in ultracold photoassociation experiments was investigated. The numerical calculations of the population transfer due to a chirped pulse from a continuum state were also performed. It was observed that the spectral width of the pulse which remained independent of the chirp covered a typical range of energies. The photoassociation with a chirped laser pulse was found to be a promising scheme and the estimated rate of the molecules per second in typical experimental conditions was larger than previously computed result.