Doppler cooling of gallium atoms: 2. Simulation in complex multilevel systems

L Rutherford (1) , I C Lane (2) , J F Mccann (1)

1 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
2 School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering

This paper derives a general procedure for the numerical solution of the Lindblad equations that govern the coherences arising from multicoloured light interacting with a multilevel system. A systematic approach to finding the conservative and dissipative terms is derived and applied to the laser cooling of p-block elements. An improved numerical method is developed to solve the time-dependent master equation and results are presented for transient cooling processes. The method is significantly more robust, efficient and accurate than the standard method and can be applied to a broad range of atomic and molecular systems. Radiation pressure forces and the formation of dynamic dark-states are studied in the gallium isotope 66 Ga.

Mots clés: Physical Sciences

L Rutherford, I C Lane, J F Mccann. Doppler cooling of gallium atoms: 2. Simulation in complex multilevel systems. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2010, 43 (18), pp.185504. ⟨10.1088/0953-4075/43/18/185504⟩. ⟨hal-00569833⟩