Manipulating cold atoms with off-axis rotating traps

Abstract

We investigate classical motions of cold atoms in three types (harmonic, linear, and Gaussian) of off-axis rotating traps in the presence of damping forces. When the radius of rotation of the trap is within the trap volume, the atoms are always attracted towards the rotation’s origin if the damping rate Γ is larger than the trap frequency ω (i.e., Γ > ω). This is opposed to being repelled by the centrifugal force in a rotating reference frame. Contrarily, when the trap’s rotation radius is larger than the trap size, the atoms experience a time-averaged ring-shape trap at a high rotational frequency. These anomalous properties can be used to realize high-speed rotation sensors and effective static ring-trap potentials for manipulating cold atoms.