Ultra-cold atoms in an optical cavity: two-mode laser locking to the cavity avoiding radiation pressure

Abstract

The combination of ultra-cold atomic clouds with the light fields of optical cavities provides a powerful model system for the development of new types of laser cooling and for studying cooperative phenomena. These experiments critically depend on the precise tuning of an incident pump laser with respect to a cavity resonance. Here, we present a simple and reliable experimental tuning scheme based on a two-mode laser spectrometer. The scheme uses a first laser for probing higher-order transversal modes of the cavity having an intensity minimum near the cavity's optical axis, where the atoms are confined by a magnetic trap. In this way the cavity resonance is observed without exposing the atoms to unwanted radiation pressure. A second laser, which is phase-locked to the first one and tuned close to a fundamental cavity mode drives the coherent atom-field dynamics.

arXiv comment7 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (9)

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• Ultra-cold atoms in an optical cavity: two-mode laser locking to the cavity avoiding radiation pressure

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Cavity-Controlled Collective Scattering at the Recoil Limit
• Observation of Subradiant Atomic Momentum States with Bose-Einstein Condensates in a Recoil Resolving Optical Ring Resonator
• Pinning Transition of Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Ring Resonators
• Ultra-cold atoms in an optical cavity: two-mode laser locking to the cavity avoiding radiation pressure