Cavity-Induced Atom Cooling in the Strong Coupling Regime

We investigate the possibility of all optical trapping and cooling a single atom at the antinodes of a high $Q$ optical cavity mode to which the atom is strongly coupled. For properly chosen parameters the dynamics of the cavity field introduces a novel Sisyphus type cooling mechanism yielding final temperatures much below the Doppler limit and allowing for long trapping times, avoiding the problems induced by spontaneous emission.