Abstract

Cooling in Grey Molasses (GM) ^1,2 occurs when the laser frequency is tuned to the blue side of a J → J or J → J − 1 transition (ω_L − ω_at > 0). Some states are then not coupled to the laser light. A Sisyphus effect between coupled states Ψ_G, which have spatially modulated light-shifts and uncoupled states Ψ_NC which experience no light-shift, accumulates the atoms into Ψ_NC with very low momenta, on the order of the photon recoil momentum.

© 1996 IEEE