https://doi.org/10.1007/PL00011156
Collision-assisted Zeeman cooling of neutral atoms
Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, Département de Physique de l'École Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond,
75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
and
INFM sezione Firenze, largo E. Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy
Corresponding author: a gabriele.ferrari@lkb.ens.fr
Received:
10
May
2000
Published online: 15 January 2001
We propose a new method to cool gaseous samples of neutral atoms. The gas is
confined in a non dissipative optical trap in the presence of an homogeneous
magnetic field. The method accumulates atoms in the mF=0 Zeeman sub-level.
Cooling occurs via collisions that produce atoms in 
states. Thanks
to the second order Zeeman effect kinetic energy is transformed into internal
energy and recycling of atoms is ensured by optical pumping. This method may
allow quantum degeneracy to be reached by purely optical means.
PACS: 32.80.Pj – Optical cooling of atoms; trapping / 32.60.+i – Zeeman and Stark effects / 03.75.Fi – Phase coherent atomic ensembles; quantum condensation phenomena
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2001
