Engineering New Doppler Limits

Abstract

When you want to trap neutral atoms in optical tweezers you better be cold. And when I say cold I don’t mean dilution fridge cold. I mean 10 times colder. To reach such temperatures we conventionally use laser cooling, which brings us to the doppler temperature proportional to the transition linewidth. But what if the linewidths of your atom are either too large and too small (e.g. Calcium)? Well… then you have to try to engineer your own linewidths. In this talk I will explore the concept of cooling an atom using lasers. I will focus on conditions necessary for cooling, and on understanding what properties atom have and how to change them. Can we, for instance, modify an atom’s level structure to select an arbitrary linewidth? I will also briefly introduce the experiment in which I am involved – Quantum non-demolition of Circular Calcium Rydberg Atoms.