Anisotropic velocity distributions in 3D dissipative optical lattices

Johan Jersblad (1) , Harald Ellmann (1) , Laurent Sanchez-Palencia (2) , Anders Kastberg (1, 3)

1 Department of Physics [Stockholm]
2 LKB (Lhomond) - Laboratoire Kastler Brossel
3 Department of Physics [Umeå]

We present a direct measurement of velocity distributions in two dimensions by using an absorption imaging technique in a 3D near resonant optical lattice. The results show a clear difference in the velocity distributions for the different directions. The experimental results are compared with a numerical 3D semi-classical Monte-Carlo simulation. The numerical simulations are in good qualitative agreement with the experimental results.

Mots clés: Optical cooling and trapping of atoms; Sisyphus mechanism

Domaines: Physique Quantique [quant-ph]

Johan Jersblad, Harald Ellmann, Laurent Sanchez-Palencia, Anders Kastberg. Anisotropic velocity distributions in 3D dissipative optical lattices. The European Physical Journal D : Atomic, molecular, optical and plasma physics, 2003, 22, pp.333. ⟨10.1140/epjd/e2003-00038-4⟩. ⟨hal-00000117⟩