Long Range Interactions in Magneto-Optical Traps

We present in this paper a review of our work on the impact of long-range interactions on the static and dynamic behaviors of magneto-optical traps (MOT) for neutral atoms. In such systems, all forces (confinement and interaction) are mediated by light. The most obvious signature of long-range inter...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Labeyrie, G, Gattobigio, G L, Pohl, T, Kaiser, R
Format: Conference Proceeding
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We present in this paper a review of our work on the impact of long-range interactions on the static and dynamic behaviors of magneto-optical traps (MOT) for neutral atoms. In such systems, all forces (confinement and interaction) are mediated by light. The most obvious signature of long-range interactions is the dependence of the MOT size with number N of trapped atoms. We study in detail the scaling laws for the MOT size versus N, in a range of large N' > > '108. We then show that the competition between confinement and repulsive interaction can lead, for N large, to a new dynamical instability characterized by spontaneous, self-sustained oscillations of the MOT. This instability is investigated experimentally and theoretically, using both a simple analytical model and a more refined numerical one.
ISSN:0094-243X
DOI:10.1063/1.2839128