Abstract

Manipulation techniques of the translational state of atoms by light rely on special configurations of atomic states coupled by transitions. In an important class of configurations, finite families of quantum states exist that are closed under atom-field interaction. This situation occurs, for instance, when adiabatic passage is used for controlled momentum change or beam splitting¹ or for the preparation of Fock states of the radiation field.² In the case of laser cooling, the advantage of the existence of a closed family is that stimulated transitions can only give a limited contribution to the heating by momentum diffusion. A special case where closed families arise is coherent population trapping in one or two dimensions.³

© 1994 IEEE