Enhancement of laser cooling by the use of magnetic gradients

Andreas Albrecht, Alex Retzker, Christof Wunderlich, Martin B. Plenio

Published 2010-09-13, updated 2011-03-17Version 2

We present a laser cooling scheme for trapped ions and atoms using a combination of laser couplings and a magnetic gradient field. In a Schrieffer-Wolff transformed picture, this setup cancels the carrier and blue sideband terms completely resulting in an improved cooling behaviour compared to standard cooling schemes (e.g. sideband cooling) and allowing cooling to the vibrational ground state. A condition for optimal cooling rates is presented and the cooling behaviour for different Lamb-Dicke parameters and spontaneous decay rates is discussed. Cooling rates of one order of magnitude less than the trapping frequency are achieved using the new cooling method. Furthermore the scheme turns out to be robust under deviations from the optimal parameters and moreover provides good cooling rates also in the multi particle case.