QUANTUM-MECHANICAL INTERFERENCE BETWEEN OPTICAL-TRANSITIONS AND THE EFFECT OF LASER PHASE NOISE

We consider three-photon-one-photon phase control of resonance-enhance d photonioization with a phase-diffusion field. As is well known, cont rol is achieved because excitation via the fundamental field interfere s with excitation via the third harmonic held, and the form of the int erference (i.e., constructive or destructive) depends on the relative phase difference between the two fields. In the problem the stochastic nature of the field influences control because the propagation consta nt of a dispersive medium depends on the field's fluctuating frequency . Here, we approach the influence of laser phase noise on control via (i) a physically intuitive zeroth-order approximation, (ii) first-orde r perturbation theory, and (iii) numerical simulation. Our results sho w that first-order perturbation theory is not attractive for the study of this problem, since it requires the evaluation of very high order correlation functions associated with the fundamental field's fluctuat ing frequency. More importantly, however, numerical simulation demonst rates that highly efficient control can be attained even in the presen ce of very large linewidth fields.