Cooling of atomic ensembles in optical cavities: Semiclassical limit

Stefan Schütz, Hessam Habibian, and Giovanna Morigi
Phys. Rev. A 88, 033427 – Published 30 September 2013

Abstract

The semiclassical dynamics of atoms, when the atoms are confined inside a standing-wave high-finesse resonator, is theoretically studied. The atoms are cooled by scattering processes in which the photons of a transverse laser are coherently scattered into the cavity mode. We derive a Fokker-Planck equation for the atomic center-of-mass variables which allows us to determine the equations of motion in the semiclassical limit for any value of the intensity of the laser field. We extract its prediction for the dynamics when the resonator is essentially in the vacuum state and the atoms are cooled by scattering photons into the cavity mode, which then decays. Its predictions for the stationary atomic distribution are compared with the ones of the Fokker-Planck equation by Domokos et al. [J. Phys. B 34, 187 (2001)], which has been derived under different assumptions. We find full agreement in the considered parameter regime.

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  • Received 10 July 2013

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.88.033427

©2013 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Stefan Schütz1,*, Hessam Habibian1,2,3, and Giovanna Morigi1

  • 1Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, D-66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
  • 2Departament de Física, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, E-08193 Bellaterra, Spain
  • 3ICFO — Institut de Ciències Fotòniques, Mediterranean Technology Park, E-08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain

  • *stefan.schuetz@physik.uni-saarland.de

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Vol. 88, Iss. 3 — September 2013

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