- #1
carlosbgois
- 68
- 0
Hey there.
My goal is to understand the origin of the main forces that keep together an optical lattice created by two identical counter-propagating laser beams.
I quote a small excerpt about the forces in optical molasses with high intensity, which I'm having trouble in understanding:
As I understand, the first paragraph is talking about the dipole force, and the second is about the scattering force, which is velocity dependent.
The problem is that they seem to contradict each other, by saying that "the force that actually slows the atoms is the dipole force," and later that "in the absence of the scattering force the atoms moving through the light field experience no average force."
Can someone give me a hint on how to interpret this correctly?
My goal is to understand the origin of the main forces that keep together an optical lattice created by two identical counter-propagating laser beams.
I quote a small excerpt about the forces in optical molasses with high intensity, which I'm having trouble in understanding:
The force that actually slows the atoms derives from the light shift which is the reversible exchange of momentum between the atoms and the light field via absorption followed by stimulated emission.
[...]
However, in the absence of the spontaneous emission that causes the velocity dependent damping force, atoms that move through the light field experience no average force because these stimulates processes of momentum exchange between atom and field can occur in either direction with equal likelihood.
As I understand, the first paragraph is talking about the dipole force, and the second is about the scattering force, which is velocity dependent.
The problem is that they seem to contradict each other, by saying that "the force that actually slows the atoms is the dipole force," and later that "in the absence of the scattering force the atoms moving through the light field experience no average force."
Can someone give me a hint on how to interpret this correctly?