Mechanical effects of optical resonators on driven trapped atoms: Ground-state cooling in a high-finesse cavity

We investigate theoretically the mechanical effects of light on atoms trapped by an external potential, whose dipole transition couples to the mode of an optical resonator and is driven by a laser. We derive an analytical expression for the quantum center-of-mass dynamics, which is valid in presence of a tight external potential. This equation has broad validity and allows for a transparent interpretation of the individual scattering processes leading to cooling. We show that the dynamics is a competition of the mechanical effects of the cavity and of the laser photons, which may mutually interfere. We focus on the good-cavity limit and identify novel cooling schemes, which are based on quantum interference effects and lead to efficient ground-state cooling in experimentally accessible parameter regimes. © 2005 The American Physical Society.