Atomic motion in hollow submicron circular cylinders

Abstract

The motion of atoms inside a long hollow cylindrical waveguide with a circular cross section is investigated. The guide is assumed to have subwavelength dimensions, in which case the spontaneous decay process is effected only by emission of a few possible cavity modes. The characteristics of the atomic motion in the guide are explored in the presence of an excited waveguide mode. We show that the atomic motion in this case is determined by an axial channelling force and a trapping dipole force, plus a quantized light torque associated with the orbital angular momentum property of excited waveguide modes of order $\mathcal{l}>0.$ It is predicted that in addition to its axial motion, an atom subject to such a mode should be trapped radially in a vibrational state and should exhibit interesting rotational features due to the light torque, including a rotational frequency shift.