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Single-Photon Atomic Cooling - Raizen Lab - The University of ...

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dition to driving an internal transition, it also imparts a momentum kick. <strong>The</strong><br />

magnitude <strong>of</strong> momentum transfered from photon to atom is given by the de<br />

Broglie relation<br />

|p| = k (1.1)<br />

where k = w/c is the magnitude <strong>of</strong> the wavevector <strong>of</strong> the resonant light. This<br />

landmark experiment demonstrated the possibility <strong>of</strong> using light to control<br />

atomic external degrees <strong>of</strong> freedom, namely position and momentum. Progress<br />

in this field effectively stopped after this observation and further advancement<br />

would have to await the invention <strong>of</strong> the laser.<br />

Interest was revitalized 40 years later with a series <strong>of</strong> proposals to<br />

cool and trap both ions and neutral atoms using the Doppler effect [2, 3].<br />

<strong>The</strong> proposed idea is quite ingenious and is worth quickly revisiting here. It<br />

involves directing a laser beam tuned slightly below the resonance frequency<br />

(red detuned) at an atomic ensemble. <strong>The</strong> effect <strong>of</strong> such an arrangement can<br />

be deduced by considering what happens to an atom in the ensemble in the<br />

following two cases: when the atom travels toward the laser beam and when the<br />

atom travels away from it. In the first case, the atom will be brought closer into<br />

resonance by the Doppler effect and therefore its scattering rate will increase.<br />

In the latter case the motion <strong>of</strong> the atom will cause it to be further out <strong>of</strong><br />

resonance with the laser beam, reducing the scattering rate. Note that the<br />

absorption <strong>of</strong> each photon is directional, while the direction <strong>of</strong> the subsequent<br />

spontaneous emission is random. After a large number <strong>of</strong> scattering events<br />

the momentum kicks due to spontaneous emission will average to zero, while<br />

2

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