Implementation of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in degenerate systems by dimensionality reduction

We consider the problem of the implementation of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) processes in degenerate systems, with a view to be able to steer the system wave function from an arbitrary initial superposition to an arbitrary target superposition. We examine the case of an N -level atomic system consisting of N - 1 ground states coupled to a common excited state by laser pulses. We analyze the general case of initial and final superpositions belonging to the same manifold of states, and we cover also the case in which they are nonorthogonal. We demonstrate that for a given initial and target superposition, it is always possible to choose the laser pulses so that in a transformed basis the system is reduced to an effective three-level system, and standard STIRAP processes can be implemented. Our treatment leads to a simple strategy, with minimal computational complexity, which allows us to determine the laser-pulse shape required for the wanted adiabatic steering.