Rabi Oscillations
Drive a two-level system and see how detuning limits population transfer.
Free theory articleDrive a two-level system and see how detuning limits population transfer.
Concept & interpretation
In a quantum two-level system without decay, applying an external oscillating drive can cause population to oscillate continuously between the ground and excited states. Under the rotating-wave approximation, this dynamic is captured by Rabi oscillations.
Experiment
You can observe this behavior in the Rabi Oscillations module.
- Set the Drive Omega to 1 and Detuning to 1.
- Observe that the maximum excitation probability drops to 0.5 (since 1^2 / (1^2 + 1^2) = 0.5), meaning the population can never be fully transferred to the excited state. The oscillation also becomes faster, with a generalized frequency of sqrt(2) ≈ 1.414.