Statistical Mechanics of an Optical Phase Space Compressor

Abstract

We describe the statistical mechanics of a new method to produce very cold atoms or molecules. The method results from trapping a gas in a potential well, and sweeping through the well a semi-permeable barrier, one that allows particles to leave but not to return. If the sweep is sufficiently slow, all the particles trapped in the well compress into an arbitrarily cold gas. We derive analytical expressions for the velocity distribution of particles in the cold gas, and compare these results with numerical simulations.

7 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Compression of Atomic Phase Space Using an Asymmetric One-Way Barrier

Cited by in corpus (14)

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• Three-dimensional effects in "atom diodes": atom-optical devices for one-way motion
• Dressed-particle approach in the nonrelativistic classical limit
• Dynamics of Cold Atoms Crossing a One-Way Barrier
• Cold atom dynamics in crossed laser beam waveguides
• Atom cooling with an atom-optical diode on a ring
• Quantum-optical implementation of non-Hermitian potentials for asymmetric scattering
• Transversal laser excitation of atoms in a waveguide
• Cooling Atoms with a Moving One-Way Barrier
• Optimizing the catching of atoms or molecules in two-dimensional traps
• Quantum Catcher: Trapping and cooling particles using a moving atom diode and an atomic mirror