Cooling by Maxwell's demon: Preparation of single-velocity atoms for matter-wave interferometry - art. no. 011601

We present an alternative method for laser cooling of atoms close to the on e-dimensional recoil limit. This method is particularly suited for atoms no t accessible to conventional sub-Doppler cooling methods. It is based on th e repeated selection and accumulation of slow atoms from a precooled atomic cloud and on the repeated rethermalization of the remaining atoms. The pre pared ensemble is used to measure atom interferences with increased visibil ity.