Double-path dark-state laser cooling in a three-level system

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a robust, fast laser cooling method using double-path quantum interference in a three-level system, effectively eliminating heating processes and achieving near-zero phonon occupation.

Contribution

It introduces a novel double-path interference scheme for laser cooling that is more flexible and faster than existing methods, suitable for various experimental setups.

Findings

Eliminates blue sideband and carrier transitions to prevent heating.

Achieves near-zero phonon occupation up to first order in Lamb-Dicke parameter.

Faster cooling compared to traditional ground state schemes.

Abstract

We present a detailed analysis of a robust and fast laser cooling scheme [J. Cerrillo et al.,Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 043003 (2010)] on a three-level system. A special laser configuration, applicable to trapped ions, atoms, or cantilevers, designs a double-path quantum interference that eliminates the blue sideband in addition to the carrier transition, thus excluding any heating process involving up to one-phonon interactions. As a consequence, cooling achieves vanishing phonon occupation up to first order in the Lamb-Dicke parameter expansion. Underlying this scheme is a combined action of two cooling schemes which makes the proposal very flexible under constraints of the physical parameters such as laser intensity, detuning, or optical access, making it a viable candidate for experimental implementation. Furthermore, it is considerably faster than existing ground state cooling schemes. Its suitability as a cooling scheme for several ions in a trap and three-dimensional cooling is shown.