ADIABATIC CONTROL OF MOLECULAR-EXCITATION AND TUNNELING BY SHORT LASER-PULSES

We discuss a principle to control both the selective excitation of molecular vibrations and the tunneling process in a double-well potential by intense, short laser pulses with systematically shaped, smooth envelopes. In both cases, the theory of adiabatic response of Floquet states yields functionals of the pulse shape which allow an accurate prediction of the parameters of optimal pulses. The example of selective excitation leads to a far-reaching correspondence between classical and quantum mechanics; nonlinear resonances in the classical phase space play an important role.