Efficient population transfer in a multilevel system using diverging laser beams

We investigate a three-step population scheme to efficiently transfer atoms to a particular metastable state of atomic dysprosium, and present evidence of adiabatic passage in the first step. This scheme will be employed in an ongoing search for parity nonconservation (PNC) in dysprosium. In order to excite a large fraction of the transverse velocity distribution, laser beams with divergences matched to the atomic beam are applied in the first and second steps. The total efficiency of the population transfer is analyzed, and the implications for the PNC work are discussed.