LIMITS OF VELOCITY-SELECTIVE COHERENT POPULATION TRAPPING

Laser cooling based on velocity-selective coherent population trapping (VSCPT) is investigated theoretically. The VSCPT Levy flight regime i s examined through numerical solution of the optical Bloch equations a nd quantum Monte Carlo analysis. We present dependences of the cooling process on the initial width of the atomic momentum distribution and on the coherence relaxation process, both limiting the VSCPT efficienc y.