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

TL;DR

This paper studies the resonance fluorescence of a laser-cooled atom in non-harmonic potentials, analyzing cooling performance and spectral signatures with examples like the infinite square well and Morse potential.

Contribution

It introduces analysis of laser cooling and fluorescence in non-harmonic potentials, providing explicit examples and spectral signatures distinct from harmonic traps.

Findings

Ground-state and Doppler cooling are effective in non-harmonic potentials.

Spectral signatures reveal center-of-mass motion in non-harmonic traps.

Explicit examples demonstrate the theoretical results.

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.