Abstract
We develop an analytical approach to Doppler cooling of atoms by one- or two-photon transitions when the natural width of the excited level is so small that the process leads to a Doppler temperature comparable with the recoil temperature. In such a limit the usual Fokker–Planck equation for Doppler cooling does not correctly describe the cooling process. We propose a generalization of the Fokker–Planck approach and derive a new model that is able to reproduce the numerical results correctly, even very close to the recoil limit. Two cases of practical interest, one-photon Doppler cooling of strontium and two-photon Doppler cooling of hydrogen, are considered. We also treat the possibility of adding a controlled quenching of the sharp line to optimize the cooling process.
© 2003 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Y. Castin, H. Wallis, and J. Dalibard
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 6(11) 2046-2057 (1989)
O. N. Prudnikov and E. Arimondo
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20(5) 909-914 (2003)
Piet O. Schmidt, Sven Hensler, Jörg Werner, Thomas Binhammer, Axel Görlitz, and Tilman Pfau
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20(5) 960-967 (2003)