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Phys. Rev. A 64, 013407 (2001) [14 pages]

Cooling of a single atom in an optical trap inside a resonator

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S. J. van Enk1,*, J. McKeever1, H. J. Kimble1, and J. Ye2
1Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics, California Institute of Technology 12-33, Pasadena, California 91125
2JILA, Campus Box 440, University of Colorado and National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440

Received 31 May 2000; revised 21 February 2001; published 6 June 2001

We present detailed discussions of cooling and trapping mechanisms for an atom in an optical trap inside an optical cavity, as relevant to recent experiments. The interference pattern of cavity QED and trapping fields in space makes the trapping wells, in principle, distinguishable from one another. This adds considerable flexibility to creating effective trapping and cooling conditions and to detection possibilities. Friction and diffusion coefficients are calculated in and beyond the low excitation limit and full three-dimensional simulations of the quasiclassical motion of a Cs atom are performed.

© 2001 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.64.013407
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.64.013407
PACS:
32.80.Pj, 42.50.Vk, 42.50.Lc

*Present address: Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, 600–700 Mountain Ave., Murrary Hill, NJ 07980.