Abstract
When an atom with a small mass interacts with visible light, the one-photon recoil-velocity ħk/m (9.1 cm/s for metastable helium interacting with a laser at 1.08 μm) is not an infinitely small quantity of the problem. The discreteness of the linear momentum exchanges between the atom and the photon then has experimental consequences. This has been observed with He* on various mechanisms: mechanical Hanle effect,1 magnetic Sisyphus cooling,2 and cooling below the one photon recoil.3
© 1991 Optical Society of America
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