Anomalous diffusion processes, dominated by rare events, are shown to
exist and to play a central role in certain subrecoil laser cooling sc
hemes. We present a new statistical analysis of these processes, in te
rms of Levy flights, which provides a precise analytical description o
f the cooled atoms in the long time limit, where the standard methods
of quantum optics are inappropriate. These analytical predictions are
quantitatively checked by comparison with the results of quantum Monte
Carlo simulations of the cooling process at intermediate times.