Cavity cooling of atoms: within and without a cavity

Xuereb, André; Domokos, P.; Horák, Péter; Freegarde, Tim

doi:10.1140/epjd/e2011-20026-3

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…The standard approach for atoms, laser cooling, is in general impossible for molecules due to the lack of suitable cycling transitions. Creating an artificial cycling transition via cavity cooling [18] has not been demonstrated despite substantial experimental [19] and theoretical [20][21][22] effort. Likewise, evaporative or sympathetic cooling to ultracold temperatures [23] has not been realized due to lack of density or losses from inelastic collisions.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sisyphus cooling of electrically trapped polyatomic molecules

Zeppenfeld

Englert

Glöckner

et al. 2012

Nature

193

188

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The rich internal structure and long-range dipole-dipole interactions establish polar molecules as unique instruments for quantumcontrolled applications and fundamental investigations. Their potential fully unfolds at ultracold temperatures, where a plethora of effects is predicted in many-body physics [1,2], quantum information science [3,4], ultracold chemistry [5,6], and physics beyond the standard model [7,8]. These objectives have inspired the development of a wide range of methods to produce cold molecular ensembles [9][10][11][12][13][14]. However, cooling polyatomic molecules to ultracold temperatures has until now seemed intractable. Here we report on the experimental realization of opto-electrical cooling [15], a paradigm-changing cooling and accumulation method for polar molecules. Its key attribute is the removal of a large fraction of a molecule's kinetic energy in each step of the cooling cycle via a Sisyphus effect, allowing cooling with only few dissipative decay processes. We demonstrate its potential by reducing the temperature of about 10 6 trapped CH 3 F molecules by a factor of 13.5, with the phase-space density increased by a factor of 29 or a factor of 70 discounting trap losses. In contrast to other cooling mechanisms, our scheme proceeds in a trap, cools in all three dimensions, and works for a large variety of polar molecules. With no fundamental temperature limit anticipated down to the photon-recoil temperature in the nanokelvin range, our method eliminates the primary hurdle in producing ultracold polyatomic molecules. The low temperatures, large molecule numbers and long trapping times up to 27 s will allow an interaction-dominated regime to be attained, enabling collision studies and investigation of evaporative cooling toward a BEC of polyatomic molecules.The ability to prepare ultracold molecular ensembles has an application potential akin to that of ultracold atoms some decades ago. In fact, the association of KRb dimers [16] as well as the laser cooling of SrF [17] has brought fascinating physics within reach. However, both approaches are restricted to a highly specialized set of purely diatomic molecule species. In order to investigate fundamental physics based on relativistic effects near heavy nuclei or parity violation effects in chiral molecules, or to study molecules of astrophysical, biological, or chemical interest, a more general approach to preparing ultracold molecular ensemble is imperative. This holds in particular for the rich chemical variety of carbon-, nitrogen-, or oxygen-based molecules for which the constituent atoms have not even been laser cooled. Devising a dissipative process to cool such molecules into the ultracold regime has been an exceedingly challenging problem. The standard approach for atoms, laser cooling, is in general impossible for molecules due to the lack of suitable cycling transitions. Creating an artificial cycling transition via cavity cooling [18] has not been demonstrated despite substantial experimental [19] and theoretical [20][21][...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sisyphus cooling of electrically trapped polyatomic molecules

Zeppenfeld

Englert

Glöckner

et al. 2012

Nature

193

188

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“…As a result of this, the force, momentum diffusion and equilibrium temperature do not in any way depend on the position of the particle along the cavity field in a 1D model. The issue of sub-wavelength modulation of the friction force is a major limitation of cooling methods based on intracavity standing fields, in particular mirror-mediated cooling [28] and cavity-mediated cooling [13].…”

Section: General Expressions and Equilibrium Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of this work has been focused on standing-wave (Fabry-Pérot) cavities, where high Q-factors can be achieved experimentally to significantly enhance optomechanical forces. However, in the limit of strong scatterers, friction forces in standingwave cavities become increasingly position-dependent [13], which limits the overall, averaged cooling efficiency. This can be overcome by using ring cavities [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] where the translational symmetry guarantees position-independent forces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Amplified optomechanics in a unidirectional ring cavity

Xuereb

Horák

Freegarde

2011

Journal of Modern Optics

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We investigate optomechanical forces on a nearly lossless scatterer, such as an atom pumped far off-resonance or amicromirror, inside an optical ring cavity. Our model introduces two additional features to the cavity: an isolator is used to prevent circulation and resonant enhancement of the pump laser field and thus to avoid saturation of or damage to the scatterer, and an optical amplifier is used to enhance the effective $Q$-factor of the counterpropagating mode and thus to increase the velocity-dependent forces by amplifying the back-scattered light. We calculate friction forces, momentum diffusion, and steady-state temperatures to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed setup.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

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Applications of Transfer Matrices

Xuereb

2012

Springer Theses

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Cavity cooling of atoms: within and without a cavity

Cited by 3 publications

References 28 publications

Sisyphus cooling of electrically trapped polyatomic molecules

Sisyphus cooling of electrically trapped polyatomic molecules

Amplified optomechanics in a unidirectional ring cavity

Applications of Transfer Matrices

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