Laser cooling of a trapped particle with increased Rabi frequencies

TL;DR

This paper presents a refined model for laser cooling of a trapped particle that allows higher Rabi frequencies without affecting the final cooling outcome, potentially enabling more efficient cooling strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a model that relaxes previous approximations, allowing higher Rabi frequencies in laser cooling while maintaining the same final temperature.

Findings

Higher Rabi frequencies increase cooling rate

Final cooling outcome remains unchanged

Model can be extended to complex scenarios like cavity cooling

Abstract

This paper analyses the cooling of a single particle in a harmonic trap with red-detuned laser light with fewer approximations than previously done in the literature. We avoid the adiabatic elimination of the excited atomic state but are still interested in Lamb-Dicke parameters $\eta \ll 1$. Our results show that the Rabi frequency of the cooling laser can be chosen higher than previously assumed, thereby increasing the effective cooling rate but {\em not} affecting the final outcome of the cooling process. Since laser cooling is already a well established experimental technique, the main aim of this paper is to present a model which can be extended to more complex scenarios, like cavity-mediated laser cooling.