Rabi frequency

The Rabi frequency is the frequency at which the probability amplitudes of two atomic energy levels fluctuate in an oscillating electromagnetic field. It is proportional to the transition dipole moment of the two levels and to the amplitude (not intensity) of the electromagnetic field. Population transfer between the levels of such a 2-level system illuminated with light exactly resonant with the difference in energy between the two levels will occur at the Rabi frequency; when the incident light is detuned from this energy difference (detuned from resonance) then the population transfer occurs at the generalized Rabi frequency. The Rabi frequency is a semiclassical concept since it treats the atom as an object with quantized energy levels and the electromagnetic field as a continuous wave.

In the context of a nuclear magnetic resonance experiment, the Rabi frequency is the nutation frequency of a sample's net nuclear magnetization vector about a radio-frequency field. (Note that this is distinct from the Larmor frequency, which characterizes the precession of a transverse nuclear magnetization about a static magnetic field.)