Numerical examination of optical lattice gas heating within realistic optical cavities

Abstract

With a focus on optical lattice gas heating, direct simulation Monte Carlo was used to investigate the interaction between molecular nitrogen, initially at 300 K and 0.8 atm, and ten successive, pulsed optical lattices in the presence of two multipass cavity concepts. Created from two 5 ns, 130 mJ, 532 nm laser pulses, the optical lattice parameters simulated were chosen based on published optical lattice-based experiments. Similarly, the cavity concepts used were simulated with optical energy losses comparable to that observed experimentally. Translational gas temperatures were sampled on every cavity round trip and found to facilitate several hundred Kelvin increases in some cases. Importantly, these simulation results suggest that while optical energy losses significantly limit attainable gas temperatures in the context of multipass optical cavities, net momentum deposition into the gas profoundly impacts the energy deposition potential and gas temperature changes achievable through optical lattice gas heating.