dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaCavity cooling of a single atom
| Authors | P. Maunz, T. Puppe, I. Schuster, N. Syassen, P. W. H. Pinkse, G. Rempe |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0403033 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0403033 |
| DOI | 10.1038/nature02387 |
| Journal | Nature 428, 50-52 (2004) |
Abstract
All conventional methods to laser-cool atoms rely on repeated cycles of optical pumping and spontaneous emission of a photon by the atom. Spontaneous emission in a random direction is the dissipative mechanism required to remove entropy from the atom. However, alternative cooling methods have been proposed for a single atom strongly coupled to a high-finesse cavity; the role of spontaneous emission is replaced by the escape of a photon from the cavity. Application of such cooling schemes would improve the performance of atom cavity systems for quantum information processing. Furthermore, as cavity cooling does not rely on spontaneous emission, it can be applied to systems that cannot be laser-cooled by conventional methods; these include molecules (which do not have a closed transition) and collective excitations of Bose condensates, which are destroyed by randomly directed recoil kicks. Here we demonstrate cavity cooling of single rubidium atoms stored in an intracavity dipole trap. The cooling mechanism results in extended storage times and improved localization of atoms. We estimate that the observed cooling rate is at least five times larger than that produced by free-space cooling methods, for comparable excitation of the atom.
{
"annotation_id": "590e8653-8fef-4ef0-a8aa-192b0f674714",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:02:06.498000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:02:06.498000Z",
"file_hash": "0e214c9e8e7d8bf5d7a0995e143d39576932d52205e4085018bd6ce0545fceb5",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "All conventional methods to laser-cool atoms rely on repeated cycles of\noptical pumping and spontaneous emission of a photon by the atom. Spontaneous\nemission in a random direction is the dissipative mechanism required to remove\nentropy from the atom. However, alternative cooling methods have been proposed\nfor a single atom strongly coupled to a high-finesse cavity; the role of\nspontaneous emission is replaced by the escape of a photon from the cavity.\nApplication of such cooling schemes would improve the performance of atom\ncavity systems for quantum information processing. Furthermore, as cavity\ncooling does not rely on spontaneous emission, it can be applied to systems\nthat cannot be laser-cooled by conventional methods; these include molecules\n(which do not have a closed transition) and collective excitations of Bose\ncondensates, which are destroyed by randomly directed recoil kicks. Here we\ndemonstrate cavity cooling of single rubidium atoms stored in an intracavity\ndipole trap. The cooling mechanism results in extended storage times and\nimproved localization of atoms. We estimate that the observed cooling rate is\nat least five times larger than that produced by free-space cooling methods,\nfor comparable excitation of the atom.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0403033",
"authors": [
"P. Maunz",
"T. Puppe",
"I. Schuster",
"N. Syassen",
"P. W. H. Pinkse",
"G. Rempe"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1038/nature02387",
"journal_ref": "Nature 428, 50-52 (2004)",
"title": "Cavity cooling of a single atom",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0403033"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "ce112f69-42c9-4d97-8ce4-31ae0b1cbc65",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}