Spontaneous decay rates of the hyperfine structure atomic states into an optical nanofiber

Spontaneous decay rates of atoms into guided modes of an optical nanofiber are found for atomic transitions between the hyperfine structure sublevels. The decay rates are evaluated for the hyperfine structure transitions in Rb atoms. The efficiency of the guided mode excitation by spontaneous decay of the specific hyperfine atomic states is examined for both the fundamental fiber mode HE₁₁ and the higher-order modes TE₀₁, TM₀₁, and HE₂₁.     

Resonant light pressure forces in a strong standing laser wave

The light pressure forces acting on a two-level atom in a strong standing laser wave are calculated. It is shown that at strong saturation of a resonant atomic transition the velocity dependence of these forces include sharp variations due to multiphoton resonances. At small atomic velocities these multiphoton resonances may even change the sign of the forces. The results obtained are important for many applications of resonant light pressure, e.g. in cooling and trapping of atoms in standing laser waves.     

Dynamics of a three-level atom in a resonant light field

The paper is devoted to a consideration of the motion of a three-level atom in two resonant light waves. A kinetic equation of the Fokker-Planck type for the atomic distribution function is derived, which is valid when the recoil energy is small compared to the linewidths of the resonant transitions. The detailed behaviour of the radiation force and the diffusion tensor are studied numerically. The case of exact resonance and the nonresonant case are both considered. It is shown that a detuning from exact resonance results in a drastic decrease of the resonant light pressure force. For the detuning we determine the condition, under which an efficient action of the light pressure on a three-level atom takes place.     

Trapping and storage of atoms in a laser field

Analysis of the possibility of spatial trapping of cold atoms in a standing-wave laser field is presented. It is shown that cold atoms can be trapped for a long time in region ≈ λ in a nonresonant standing-wave field. In a resonant standing-wave field cold atoms can be stored for a long time in the region determined by the cross-section of the laser beam. Trapping and storage together with cooling of atoms that has been suggested earlier allow us in specific cases to increase the sensitivity and the resolution of spectroscopic studies.     

Measurement of the Gaponov-Miller force produced in vacuum by tightly focused intense femtosecond laser radiation

A method for measuring the Gaponov-Miller force (GMF) is demonstrated based on the deflection of a picosecond photoelectron beam exposed to tightly focused intense femtosecond laser radiation. It is shown experimentally that the action of this force produced by femtosecond laser pulses linearly depends on their intensity. The method can be used to verify the correctness of measuring the duration of an ultrashort electron bunch based on the GMF.     

Atomic beam focusing by a near-field atomic microlens

Atomic beam focusing by an atomic microlens formed by the optical field diffracted from a circular aperture in a metallic screen is considered for an aperture diameter smaller than the wavelength of the field. Analytic expressions are derived for the dipole gradient force acting on an atom in the field of diffracted radiation. It is shown that the action of the gradient force makes it possible to focus the atomic beam into a spot with a diameter on the order of a few nanometers. Numerical estimates are obtained for the focusing properties of the atomic microlens in the model describing the dipole interaction of Rb atoms with laser radiation in the vicinity of the D line.     

Hydrodynamical equations for atomic motion in a resonant light wave

The hydrodynamical equations for atomic motion in a resonant light wave have been derived. The obtained equations are applied to analyze the atomic deceleration in counter propagating light beam.     

Natural geometric representation for electron local observables

An existence of the quartic identities for the electron local observables that define orthogonality relations for the 3D quantities quadratic in the electron observables is found. It is shown that the joint solution of the quartic and bilinear identities for the electron observables defines a unique natural representation of the observables. In the natural representation the vector type electron local observables have well-defined fixed positions with respect to a local 3D orthogonal reference frame. It is shown that the natural representation of the electron local observables can be defined in six different forms depending on a choice of the orthogonal unit vectors. The natural representation is used to determine the functional dependence of the electron wave functions on the local observables valid for any shape of the electron wave packet.     

Geometry of the electron local observables

We show that the complete set of the second power identities for the electron local observables consists of 36 equations. The identities connect the products of the electron bilinear forms and, being considered as geometrically meaningful equations in 3D Euclidean space, are separated over the groups of equations for the scalar, vector and tensor quantities. Considering the complete set of identities as a set of the second power equations, we solve the equations and find the irreducible representation for the electron local observables. The representation defines the 16 electron local observables as functions of 7 basic parameters and can be formulated in 6 various forms. The basic parameters include scalar and pseudoscalar, the time components of a 4-vector and a 4-pseudovector, and three Euler angles which define the angular position of a local 3D frame with respect to the 3D laboratory frame. These 7 parameters completely define the space components of the 4-vector and the 4-pseudovector, as well as the polar and axial vectors. The developed representation shows that the analysis of the any electron wave packet can be considerably simplified by the reduction of the number of analyzed real functions from 16 to 7. As an example, we present the structure of the local observables defined by the irreducible representation in a case of a traveling electron wave.     

Atomic scatterin G by a resonant standing light wave

The theory of atomic scattering by a resonant standing light wave is developed. It is shown that, if the natural width of atomic transition is larger than the recoil energy and the interaction time exeeds the spontaneous decay time, the atomic motion is described by the kinetic equation for atomic distribution function. The latter is a Fokker-Planck type equation and includes the light pressure force and momentum diffusion tensor. It is found that in a strong wave the maximum value of the force is limited, whereas the diffusion tensor increases proportional to wave intensity. It is concluded that for high intensities of a standing wave, it is the atomic momentum diffusion that is responsible for scattering.