Dynamics of cavity cooling of trapped atoms

In this poster we characterize the cooling dynamics of atoms confined by an external potential in a high-Q cavity, when the width of the atomic wave packet is much smaller than the field wave-length. Its form allows us to identify novel regimes where the motion can be efficiently cooled to the potential ground state. In particular, parameter regimes are identified where the dynamics is characterized by quantum interference between the mechanical effects of the laser and of the resonator fields, which selectively enhance the cooling transitions and thus the efficiency. In this regime we characterize the state of the system by the spectrum of the intensity of the light scattered by the atom and at the cavity output, when atom and cavity are at steady state of the cooling dynamics. We evaluate the spectrum by implementing the model of M. Bienert et al., (2006) to atoms inside resonators. We find that, in some cases, quantum interference effects lead to the suppression of features of the resonance fluorescence spectrum, which are otherwise visible in the spectrum of atoms in free space.