Konstanz 1998 – scientific programme

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SYC: Symposium Einzelne Atome, Ionen und Moleküle

SYC 2: Symposium Einzelne Atome, Ionen und Moleküle II

SYC 2.3: Talk

Thursday, March 19, 1998, 11:45–12:00, R 711

Cavity induced atom cooling and trapping in the strong coupling r egime — •H. Ritsch, P. Horak, G. Hechenblaikner, and K. Gheri — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstr. 25, A–6020 Innsbruck, Austria

We consider a single or a few particles moving in the field of a high Q optical cavity mode. We find all–optical trapping and cooling at the antinodes of the mode to which the atoms are strongly coupled, which is due to the position–dependent change of the effective cavity resonance frequency. For properly chosen parameters the dynamics of the cavity field introduces a Sisyphus type cooling mechanism yielding final temperatures much below the Doppler limit and allowing for long trapping times. Using a sufficiently large detuning helps avoiding the kinetic heating induced by spontaneous emission as well as the so called dipole heating. As the atom finally is strongly localized at regions of maximal atom field coupling this system seems ideal for cavity QED experiments in the optical domain, where one needs long interaction times and high coupling. The principle should be easily generalizable to more complex objects as e.g. molecules with a sufficiently large optical dipole moment. Calculations range from an almost classical model, involving only the particle position, the momentum and the mode amplitude, a semiclassical model including spontaneous emision and photon recoil, to full quantum Monte-Carlo wavefunction simulations.