Eur. Phys. J. D (2016) 70: 215
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2016-70336-9

Regular Article

Resonance fluorescence of a laser-cooled atom in a non-harmonic potential

¹ Theoretische Physik, Universität des Saarlandes, 66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
² Hohenzollern Gymnasium, 72488 Sigmaringen, Germany

^a e-mail: ralf.betzholz@physik.uni-saarland.de

Received: 19 May 2016
Received in final form: 9 August 2016
Published online: 20 October 2016

Abstract

We investigate a single laser driven atom trapped in a non-harmonic potential. We present the performance of ground-state laser cooling and Doppler cooling and the signatures of the center-of-mass motion in the power spectrum of the scattered light. In order to illustrate the results we provide two explicit examples for the confining potential: the infinite square well and the Morse potential.