New approaches in deep laser cooling of magnesium atoms for quantum metrology

Abstract

We theoretically describe two approaches aimed at solving the existing problem of deep laser cooling of neutral magnesium atoms. The first approach based on using optical molasses with orthogonal linear polarizations of light waves, while the second one implies exploiting “nonstandard” magneto-optical trap composed of elliptically polarized (in general) light waves. The widely used semiclassical approximation based on the Fokker-Planck equation as well as the full quantum treatment (with full account of the recoil effect) are applied for theoretical analysis. The results are crucial for metrological and some other applications of cold atoms.