Phys. Rev. A 77, 061401(R) (2008) [4 pages]Entropy exchange in laser cooling
It is usually presumed that spontaneous emission is necessary to remove the entropy lost by laser-cooled atoms. Here we show that the changes in the laser beams themselves constitute a sufficiently large reservoir of N states accessible to the system that their entropy S=kB ln(N) is sufficient to absorb the entropy lost by the atoms in the cooling process. Proper choice of laser parameters could possibly produce cooling of atoms or molecules over a wide range of temperatures without spontaneous emission. © 2008 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.77.061401
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.77.061401
PACS:
37.10.De, 37.10.Vz
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