Related papers: Limits of sub-Doppler cooling for atoms with vario…
We discuss generation of subwavelength optical barriers on the scale of tens of nanometers, as conservative optical potentials for cold atoms. These arise from non-adiabatic corrections to Born-Oppenheimer potentials from dressed `dark…
We present an extensive study of the unique thermal and mechanical dynamics for narrow-line cooling on the 1S0 - 3P1 88Sr transition. For negative detuning, trap dynamics reveal a transition from the semiclassical regime to the…
We propose an alternative method to laser cooling. Our approach utilizes the extreme brightness of a supersonic atomic beam, and the adiabatic atomic coilgun to slow atoms in the beam or to bring them to rest. We show how internal-state…
Spontaneous wavefunction collapse models, like the Continuous Spontaneous Localization, are designed to suppress macroscopic superpositions, while preserving microscopic quantum phenomena. An observable consequence of collapse models is…
Demagnetization cooling relies on spin-orbit coupling that brings motional and spin degrees of freedom into thermal equilibrium. In the case of a gas, one has the advantage that the spin degree of freedom can be cooled very efficiently…
We study the evolution of ultracold plasmas by measuring the electron temperature. Shortly after plasma formation, competition between heating and cooling mechanisms drives the electron temperature to a value within a narrow range…
We demonstrate a new feedback algorithm to cool a single neutral atom trapped inside a standing-wave optical cavity. The algorithm is based on parametric modulation of the confining potential at twice the natural oscillation frequency of…
We show experimentally that 3-D laser cooling of lithium atoms is achieved when the laser light is tuned exactly to resonance with the atomic transition. For a theoretical description of this surprising phenomenon we resolve to a full model…
The quantum-mechanical and thermodynamic properties of a 3-level molecular cooling cycle are derived. An inadequacy of earlier models is rectified in accounting for the spontaneous emission and absorption associated with the coupling to the…
Recently a number of diatomic and polyatomics molecules has been identified as a prospective systems for Doppler/Sisyphus cooling. Doppler/Sisyphus cooling allows to decrease the kinetic energy of molecules down to microkelvin temperatures…
We derive the quantum-mechanical master equation (generalized optical Bloch equation) for an atom in the vicinity of a flat dielectric surface. This equation gives access to the semiclassical radiation pressure force and the atomic momentum…
The interaction of an atomic gas confined inside a cavity with a strong electromagnetic field is numerically and theoretically investigated in a regime where recoil effects are not negligible. The spontaneous appearance of a density grating…
Direct searches for low mass dark matter particles via scattering off target nuclei require detection of recoiling atoms with energies of ~1 keV or less. The amount of electronic excitation produced by such atoms is quenched relative to a…
In a recent letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 167201 (2010)] we proposed a new confining method for ultracold atoms on optical lattices, based on off-diagonal confinement (ODC). This method was shown to have distinct advantages over the…
We discuss continuous observation of the momentum of a single atom by employing the high velocity sensitivity of the index of refraction in a driven $\Lambda$-system based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). In the ideal…
The last few years have seen rapid progress in the application of laser cooling to molecules. In this review, we examine what kinds of molecules can be laser cooled, how to design a suitable cooling scheme, and how the cooling can be…
We present the results of a series of calculations studying the collapse of molecular cloud cores performed using a three-dimensional smoothed particle hydr odynamics code with radiative transfer in the flux-limited diffusion approximation.…
We investigate experimentally the energy distribution of a single rubidium atom trapped in a strongly focused dipole trap under various cooling regimes. Using two different methods to measure the mean energy of the atom, we show that the…
A proposal for cooling the translational motion of optically levitated magnetic nanoparticles is presented. The theoretical cooling scheme involves the sympathetic cooling of a ferromagnetic YIG nanosphere with a spin-polarized atomic gas.…
We formulate a wave atom optics theory of the Collective Atomic Recoil Laser, where the atomic center-of-mass motion is treated quantum mechanically. By comparing the predictions of this theory with those of the ray atom optics theory,…