Superresolution of pulsed multiphoton Raman transitions.

We have investigated higher order multiphoton Raman resonances with two pulsed optical frequencies. Multiphoton transfer with up to 50 photons is observed with milliwatts of laser power. We demonstrate that the spectral width of the multiphoton resonances can be far below the Fourier transform linewidth of the driving optical pulses. The functional dependence of the transition linewidth on the number of exchanged photons is found to vary with the pulse shape. Our experiment is performed with laser-cooled rubidium atoms confined in a CO2-laser optical dipole trap.