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Physical Review A

Friction and diffusion coefficients for cooling of atoms in laser fields with multidimensional periodicity

Klaus Mølmer

Published Nov 1, 1991• 59 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Methods are presented that allow numerical calculations of the friction and momentum diffusion coefficients for atomic motion in laser fields with periodicity in one, two, and three dimensions. Polarization gradients in the fields lead to increased friction on atoms with a Zeeman sublevel structure, and new features arising in the cases of motion in two and three dimensions are discussed. There is a marked position dependence of the calculated quantities, and the consequence for the forces on atoms following specified trajectories is studied. Temperatures determined from the position-averaged friction and diffusion coefficients scale with the laser power divided by the frequency detuning, except in some special configurations. Of relevance for experiments on cooling, the relative merits of four different laser configurations in three dimensions are studied.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.44.5820

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Methods are presented that allow numerical calculations of the friction and momentum diffusion coefficients for atomic motion in laser fields with periodicity in one, two, and three dimensions. Polarization gradients in the fields lead to increased friction on atoms with a Zeeman sublevel structure, and new features arising in the cases of motion in two and three dimensions are discussed. There is a marked position dependence of the calculated quantities, and the consequence for the forces on atoms following specified trajectories is studied. Temperatures determined from the position-averaged friction and diffusion coefficients scale with the laser power divided by the frequency detuning, except in some special configurations. Of relevance for experiments on cooling, the relative merits of four different laser configurations in three dimensions are studied.
The motion of slow atoms with degenerate energy levels in a resonant, nonuniformly polarized laser field is described by the Fokker-Planck equation for the atomic distribution function in phase space in terms of the semiclassical approach. Field gradient expansions are used for the spatially nonuniform coefficients of the equation. For closed atomic transitions J g =J→J e =J+1 (J g and J e are the total angular momenta of the ground and excited states, respectively), new analytical results are presented for the light pressure force and the friction and diffusion coefficients in momentum space. These results allow the kinetic effects (laser cooling, localization in optical potential wells, etc.) in a field of arbitrary one-, two-, or three-dimensional configuration to be investigated. In several cases, the new contributions to the friction coefficient are interpreted qualitatively.
We have investigated the localization of atoms in two configurations of laser fields: monochromatic and bichromatic standing waves. A quasi resonant monochromatic laser field creates a spatially periodic potential field with period equal to half of the wavelength. If the atomic kinetic energy is less than the height of the potential wells then atoms could be trapped in the wells. The motion of atoms in a standing wave is governed by the gradient force, friction force, and momentum diffusion. We studied one dimensional localization of sodium atoms in such a standing wave, as well as the influence of friction and diffusion on the motion of these atoms. The effect of accumulation of atoms at the bottom of potential wells (nodes of a standing wave) was observed. This leads to a new scheme of laser cooling of atoms with a minimum temperature below the Doppler limit.
A theoretical study is carried out for the laser cooling of a moving three-level atom in a ladder configuration, driven by a bichromatic laser fields with a broad-band squeezed vacuum. The friction, diffusion coefficients and the equilibrium temperature are calculated numerically and shown graphically as a function of two-photon detunings for various cases of the squeezed vacuum. It is shown that the relative phases between the two coherent fields and the squeezed vacuum field play an important role in the cooling process. For a suitable choice of parameters, the atomic cooling temperature may be reduced to below that in the case of a vacuum, even down to two orders below the Doppler temperature limit. The efficiency of this cooling scheme is also analyzed.
We extend the kinetic theory of the laser cooling of atoms to four multilevel atomic schemes: (3+5)-, (5+7)-, (7+9)-, and (9+11)-level atom. In all four atomic schemes the atoms are considered to be excited by two counterpropagating circularly polarized laser waves. A comparison of four multilevel atomic schemes shows that the even-order multiphoton processes are responsible for the narrow structures near zero velocity in the atomic coherences, atomic populations, dipole radiation forces, and the diffusion coefficients. The even-order multiphoton processes in a multilevel atom with a big number of magnetic sublevels are shown to produce the velocity structures, which are much narrower than that produced by the two-photon processes in a (3+5)-level atom. It is found that the multiphoton processes enhance the radiation force at low velocities and the friction produced by the force at a negative detuning. The even-order multiphoton processes caused by the laser waves are identified as the basic physical mechanism responsible for the sub-Doppler laser cooling of atoms. The temperature of laser-cooled atoms is derived for all four models and found to be lower for atomic schemes with a larger number of magnetic sublevels.
We present two cooling mechanisms that lead to temperatures well below the Doppler limit. These mechanisms are based on laser polarization gradients and work at low laser power when the optical-pumping time between different ground-state sublevels becomes long. There is then a large time lag between the internal atomic response and the atomic motion, which leads to a large cooling force. In the simple case of one-dimensional molasses, we identify two types of polarization gradient that occur when the two counterpropagating waves have either orthogonal linear polarizations or orthogonal circular polarizations. In the first case, the light shifts of the ground-state Zeeman sublevels are spatially modulated, and optical pumping among them leads to dipole forces and to a Sisyphus effect analogous to the one that occurs in stimulated molasses. In the second case (σ+−σ− configuration), the cooling mechanism is radically different. Even at very low velocity, atomic motion produces a population difference among ground-state sublevels, which gives rise to unbalanced radiation pressures. From semiclassical optical Bloch equations, we derive for the two cases quantitative expressions for friction coefficients and velocity capture ranges. The friction coefficients are shown in both cases to be independent of the laser power, which produces an equilibrium temperature proportional to the laser power. The lowest achievable temperatures then approach the one-photon recoil energy. We briefly outline a full quantum treatment of such a limit.
In relation to the newly discovered laser cooling mechanisms, the authors have studied the momentum diffusion of an atom with a j (ground)-j+1 (excited) state transition (j not=0), interacting with two counterpropagating sigma +- sigma - plane waves. A correlation between successive photon absorptions via the multi-sublevel internal atomic structure leads to a large increase of the momentum diffusion coefficient. In a simple probabilistic picture this enhanced diffusion is interpreted as a random walk with effective steps much larger than the one-photon recoil momentum k. For j=1 the authors report the results of a complete calculation (i.e. with a quantum description of the internal atomic state) showing a marked dependence upon the velocity of the atom as well as on the parameters of the laser field (detuning and power).