Dressed State Description of Bichromatic Forces

Леонід Петрович Яценко, Harold J. Metcalf

Harold J. Metcalf

Леонід Петрович Яценко, H. Metcalf

Леонід Петрович Яценко, Harold J. Metcalf

We develop a dressed-atom picture of the bichromatic force in two standing waves using a Floquet approach. It is based on previous work, but the approach allows for an interpretation of the velocity range of the force. It is limited to two-level atoms and one dimension, and the Floquet frequency is the beat between the two bichromatic optical fields. The force is mediated by Landau-Zener transitions between the dressed states of the Floquet Hamiltonian. Related topics have been addressed before in the literature, but not applied to this particular case.

Piers Coleman

Han Pu, Tianwu Cai, N. P. Bigelow +2 more

We show that a three-level atom in the cascade configuration can be stably trapped and cooled in one dimension by an intense bichromatic standing wave. At the two-photon resonance, rectified dipole forces result in a deep potential well which can be used to localize the atoms in space. In the vicinity of the rectified potential minimum, the spatial dependence of the dressed state energies can lead to a velocity dependence of the force which produces damping of the atomic motion. Consideration of the heating effects of momentum diffusion indicates that cooling and stable trapping at low temperatures is possible in such a bichromatic field.