Control of populations of two-level systems by a single resonant laser pulse

Abstract: We present a simple approach allowing to obtain analytical expressions for laser pulses that can drive a two-level system in an arbitrarily chosen way. The proposed scheme relates every desired population-evolution path to a single resonant laser pulse. It allows to drive the system from any initial superposition of the two states to a final state having the desired distribution of the populations. We exemplify the scheme with a concrete example, where the system is driven from a non-stationary superposition of states to one of its eigenstates. We argue that the proposed approach may have interesting applications for designing pulses that can control ultrafast charge-migration processes in molecules. Although focused on laser driven population control, the results obtained are general and could be applied for designing other types of control fields.