Adiabatic passage in the presence of noise

We report on an experimental investigation of rapid adiabatic passage (RAP) in a trapped barium ion system. RAP is implemented on the transition from the 6S_1/2 ground state to the metastable 5D_5/2 level by applying a laser at 1.76 μm. We focus on the interplay of laser frequency noise and laser power in shaping the effectiveness of RAP, which is commonly assumed to be a robust tool for high-efficiency population transfer. However, we note that reaching high state transfer fidelity requires a combination of small laser linewidth and large Rabi frequency.