Absorption by cold Fermi atoms in a harmonic trap

Abstract

We study the absorption spectrum for a strongly degenerate Fermi gas confined in a harmonic trap. The spectrum is calculated using both the exact summation and also the Thomas-Fermi (TF) approximation. In the latter case, relatively simple analytical expressions are obtained for the absorption lineshape at large number of trapped atoms. At zero temperature, the approximated lineshape is characterized by a $(1-z^2{)}^{5/2}$ dependence which agrees well with the exact numerical calculations. At non-zero temperature, the spectrum becomes broader, although remains non-Gaussian as long as the fermion gas is degenerate. The changes in the trap frequency for an electronically excited atom can introduce an additional line broadening.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Non-Interacting Fermions in a One-Dimensional Harmonic Atom Trap: Exact One-Particle Properties at Zero Temperature

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Slow light in degenerate Fermi gases
• Effective magnetic fields in degenerate atomic gases induced by light beams with orbital angular momenta
• Filled Landau levels in neutral quantum gases
• Comparison of spectral linewidths for quantum degenerate bosons and fermions
• Enhanced Pauli blocking of light scattering in a trapped Fermi gas