Doppler cooling of three-level $\Lambda$-systems by coherent pulse trains

Abstract

We explore the possibility of decelerating and Doppler cooling an ensemble of tree-level $\Lambda$-type atoms by a coherent train of short, non-overlapping laser pulses. We show that $\Lambda$-atoms can be Doppler cooled without additional repumping of the population from the intermediate ground state. We derive analytical expression for the scattering force in the quasi-steady-state regime and analyze its dependence on pulse train parameters. Based on this analysis we propose a method of choosing pulse train parameters to optimize the cooling process.