Physics 500 Fall 2003

University of New Mexico

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Introduction to Laser Cooling and Trapping of Atoms

General Information

Instructor: Prof. Ivan Deutsch (my research group web page)

Phys/Astro Room 24, Phone: 277-1502

email: ideutsch@info.phys.unm.edu

Office Hours: MW: 1:00-2:00 (or by appointment)

Prequisites: Physics 521-522 (or equivalent)

Overview: What began as simple technique to be used for improved spectroscopy and precision measurement has blossomed into a powerful tool for fundamental studies in low temperature physics. New applications in matter wave interferometry, quantum degenerate gases, and quantum information processing are now being actively pursued. The inventions have lead to two Nobel Prizes in physics: 1997 (for atomic laser cooling) and 2001 (for Bose-Einstein condensation). This seminar is an introduction to theory and experiment in laser cooling and trapping of neutral atoms and ions. A series of lectures for ~7 weeks will be followed by student presentations on contemporary research papers. Topics to be covered include:

• Basics of atom-photon interaction.

• Doppler cooling.

• Optical molasses and magneto-optic traps.

• Subdoppler polarization and polarization gradient cooling.

• Ion traps and resolved sideband cooling.

• Optical lattices.

Resource Materials:

• Nobel Lectures from 1997 Prize: Chu, Cohen-Tannoudj, Phillips
• BEC overview from Nobel Prize 2001
• 1990 Les Houches Summer School Lectures, "Atomic Motion in Laser Light", C. Cohen Tannoudji 
  • Chapt. 1-3.,  Chapt. 4-6.
• Review Articles on Laser Cooling and Trapping of Atoms
  • "Electromagnetic trapping of cold atoms", V I Balykin, V G Minogin and V S Letokhov, Rep. Prog. Phys. 63 1429 (2000) .
  • "Atom cooling, trapping, and quantum manipulation", Carl E. Wieman, David E. Pritchard, David J. Wineland, Rev. Mod. Phys., 71, (1999).
• Ion Traps
  • Talk by David Wineland.
  • Classic articles on cooling in ion traps.

Tentative Schedule of Lectures

Date	Topic
Aug. 26	Overview: History of laser cooling
Sep. 2	Atom-photon interactions: Lorentz oscillator model, two-level atom
Sep. 9	Doppler Cooling: Optical molasses and the Doppler Limit
Sep. 16	Trapping - Ernshaws theorem Magneto-optic trap and ion traps
Sep. 23	Cooling trapped particles -- The Lamb-Dicke effect.
Sep. 30	Resolved sideband laser cooling.
Oct. 7	Subdoppler cooling: Sissyphus cooling and optical lattices.
Oct. 14-Dec. 12	Student presentations