A study of laser action on a free-molecular flow of atoms in a capillary

We found experimentally that resonance laser irradiation of a rarefied flow of atoms in a capillary causes their density at the exit to decrease. We established a dependence of the change in atomic density on the excitation intensity. The observed effect is shown to be related to the flow heating caused by hyperelastic collisions of excited atoms with the capillary wall. We describe the gas heating in a capillary taking into account the energy relaxation of hot atoms as they collide with the wall. We show that our experimental results can be explained by assuming that the energy accommodation coefficient for hot atoms during their collisions with the wall is close to unity.