Spectrum of resonance fluorescence and cooling dynamics in quantized one-dimensional molasses: Effects of laser configuration.

Abstract

We study theoretically the spectrum of resonance fluorescence and laser-cooling dynamics corresponding to quantized atomic motion in one-dimensional optical molasses. We consider an atom with a ${\mathit{J}}_{\mathit{g}}$=1\ensuremath{\rightarrow}${\mathit{J}}_{\mathit{e}}$=2 transition interacting with two counterpropagating laser beams. The laser light is assumed to be linearly polarized with an angle \ensuremath{\theta} between the polarization vectors. We discuss the spectrum of resonance fluorescence, the spectroscopy of band structure in the optical potentials, and the population of the vibrational quantum levels as a function of the angle between the polarization vectors.