Cavity cooling of many atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates cavity cooling of an atomic ensemble using far-detuned light, significantly reducing atomic temperature within 100 ms through cavity-induced emission enhancement, with potential applications to complex molecules.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cavity cooling method effective for many atoms and potentially complex molecules, expanding cooling techniques beyond traditional approaches.

Findings

Temperature reduced from 200 μK to 10 μK

Cooling achieved within 100 ms

Technique applicable to molecules with complex energy structures

Abstract

We demonstrate cavity cooling of all motional degrees of freedom of an atomic ensemble using light that is far detuned from the atomic transitions by several gigahertz. The cooling is achieved by cavity-induced frequency-dependent asymmetric enhancement of the atomic emission spectrum, thereby extracting thermal kinetic energy from the atomic system. Within $100 ~\mathrm{ms}$, the atomic temperature is reduced from $200 ~\mu\mathrm{K}$ to $10 ~\mu\mathrm{K}$, where the final temperature is mainly limited by the linewidth of the cavity. In principle, the technique can be applied to molecules and atoms with complex internal energy structure.