Adiabatic elimination, the rotating-wave approximation and two-photon transitions

The rotating-wave approximation (RWA) is a formalism of great utility in the description of the coherent excitation of atoms and molecules by laser light. Not only does it give results in agreement with experiment, it also provides a simple framework allowing the Hamiltonian of a system to be written down from inspection of the state-linkage diagram. Recent interest in systems with a two-photon coupling prompted an investigation of the structure of two-photon terms in RWA Hamiltonians. In carrying through the derivation, an interaction with adiabatic elimination was discovered. It is shown that adiabatic elimination must be performed before application of the RWA, else terms are dropped that ought to be retained. RWA Hamiltonians for three-state systems with one and two two-photon linkages are displayed.