Collision-Induced Coherence Effect on Coherent Population Transfer

We investigate the effect of collision-induced coherence on coherent population transfer with the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage technique in a double Λ-type four-level system with a widely separated excited doublet. It is shown that when the two pulsed lasers with Rabi frequencies nearly comparable to the energy separation of the doublet are tuned to the particular frequency where the condition for quantum interference is satisfied, the very low transfer efficiency due to the nonadiabatic coupling between the two degenerate adiabatic states could be enhanced significantly with the increase of the collisional decay rates in a moderate range. The enhanced transfer efficiency results from the weakening of the nonadiabatic coupling between the two degenerate adiabatic states realized through collision-induced destructive quantum interference.