Abstract
We use optimal control theory to show that for a closed Λ-system where the excited intermediate level decays to the lower levels with a common large rate, the optimal scheme for population transfer between the lower levels is actually optical pumping. In order to obtain this result we exploit the large decay rate to eliminate adiabatically the weakly coupled excited state, then perform a transformation to the basis comprised of the dark and bright states, and finally apply optimal control to this transformed system. Subsequently, we confirm the optimality of the optical pumping scheme for the original closed Λ-system using numerical optimal control. We also demonstrate numerically that optical pumping remains optimal when the decay rate to the target state is larger than that to the initial state or the two rates are not very different from each other. The present work is expected to find application in various tasks of quantum information processing, where such systems are encountered