  Far-off-resonant pulsed laser fields produce negligible excitation between
two atomic states but may induce considerable phase shifts. The acquired phases
are usually calculated by using the adiabatic-elimination approximation. We
analyze the accuracy of this approximation and derive the conditions for its
applicability to the calculation of the phases. We account for various sources
of imperfections, ranging from higher terms in the adiabatic-elimination
expansion and irreversible population loss to couplings to additional states.
We find that, as far as the phase shifts are concerned, the adiabatic
elimination is accurate only for a very large detuning. We show that the
adiabatic approximation is a far more accurate method for evaluating the phase
shifts, with a vast domain of validity; the accuracy is further enhanced by
superadiabatic corrections, which reduce the error well below $10^{-4}$.
Moreover, owing to the effect of adiabatic population return, the adiabatic and
superadiabatic approximations allow one to calculate the phase shifts even for
a moderately large detuning, and even when the peak Rabi frequency is larger
than the detuning; in these regimes the adiabatic elimination is completely
inapplicable. We also derive several exact expressions for the phases using
exactly soluble two-state and three-state analytical models.
