English

Purely optical macroscopic trap for alkaline-earth and similar atoms

Atomic Physics 2026-03-05 v1

Abstract

We consider a laser cooling and trapping of alkaline-earth and similar atoms in a bichromatic field resonant to a closed optical transition 1S01P1^1S_0 \to \, ^1P_1 or 1S03P1^1S_0 \to \, ^3P_1. It is shown that new kinetic effects emerge compared to monochromatic fields, enabling the formation of a deep macroscopic trap capable of capturing and cooling neutral atoms to sub-Doppler temperatures. Such a purely optical macroscopic trap can serve as an alternative to the well-known magneto-optical trap and can be used in applications requiring minimization of the magnetic field in the cold atom cloud region. The obtained results are of interest for the new generation of quantum sensors and optical frequency standards.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.03653,
  title  = {Purely optical macroscopic trap for alkaline-earth and similar atoms},
  author = {O. N. Prudnikov and V. I. Yudin and R. Ya. Ilenkov and A. V. Taichenachev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.03653},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Physics