Optical cooling and trapping of tripod-type atoms with rectified radiation forces

Abstract

A new scheme of three-dimensional (3D) all-optical (nonmagnetic) cooling and trapping of resonant atoms, based on using of so-called rectified radiation forces in non-monochromatic light fields is presented. It can be applied to the atoms with a tripod-type configuration of levels: atoms (ions) with the quantum transition F=1 \to F=0. The scheme proposed provides a long-term trapping of such atoms in deep light-induced potential wells. Moreover, the atom temperature can continuously be changed by varying field parameters in quite a large range (from super-Doppler to sub-Doppler values) without violating the localization stability.