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Science

Comprehensive Control of Atomic Motion

Mark G. Raizen

Published Jun 11, 2009• 82 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Recent work provides a general two-step solution to trapping and cooling of atoms. The first step is magnetic stopping of paramagnetic atoms with the use of a sequence of pulsed fields. The second step is single-photon cooling, which is based on a one-way barrier. This cooling method is related intimately to the historic problem of "Maxwell's Demon" and subsequent work by L. Szilard. Here, I discuss the connections between single-photon cooling and information entropy. I also outline future application of these methods to fundamental tests with hydrogen isotopes.

DOI
10.1126/science.1171506

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Recent work provides a general two-step solution to trapping and cooling of atoms. The first step is magnetic stopping of paramagnetic atoms with the use of a sequence of pulsed fields. The second step is single-photon cooling, which is based on a one-way barrier. This cooling method is related intimately to the historic problem of "Maxwell's Demon" and subsequent work by L. Szilard. Here, I discuss the connections between single-photon cooling and information entropy. I also outline future application of these methods to fundamental tests with hydrogen isotopes.
We demonstrate a general and efficient informational cooling technique for atoms that is an experimental realization of a one-dimensional Maxwell's demon. The technique transfers atoms from a magnetic trap into an optical trap via a single spontaneous Raman transition that is discriminatively driven near each atom's classical turning point. In this way, nearly all of the atomic ensemble's kinetic energy in one dimension is removed. We develop a simple analytical model to predict the efficiency of transfer between the traps and provide evidence that the performance is limited only by particle dynamics in the magnetic trap. Transfer efficiencies up to 2.2% are reported. We show that efficiency can be traded for phase-space compression, and we report compression up to a factor of 350. Our results represent a 15-fold improvement over our previous demonstration of the cooling technique.
We propose a general method to cool the translational motion of molecules. Our method is an extension of single photon atomic cooling which was successfully implemented in our laboratory. Requiring a single event of absorption followed by a spontaneous emission, this method circumvents the need for a cycling transition and can be applied to any paramagnetic or polar molecule. In our approach, trapped molecules would be captured near their classical turning points in an optical dipole or RF-trap following an irreversible transition process.