Continuous loading of an atom beam into an optical lattice

Abstract

I propose a method of deceleration and continuous loading of an atom beam into a far-off-resonance optical lattice. The loading of moving atoms into a conservative far-off-resonance potential requires the removal of the atom's excess kinetic energy. Here this is achieved by the Sisyphus cooling method, where a differential lattice-induced ac Stark shift is utilized. The proposed method is described for the case of ytterbium atoms. Numerical simulations demonstrate the possibility of reaching cold and dense samples in a continuous manner on the example of ytterbium atoms.