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 $\mu$m. 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.