We demonstrate a general and efficient informational cooling technique for atoms which is an experimental realization of a one-dimensional Maxwells Demon. The technique transfers atoms from a magnetic trap into an optical trap via a single spontaneou
s Raman transition which is discriminatively driven near each atoms classical turning point. In this way, nearly all of the atomic ensembles kinetic energy in one dimension is removed. We develop a simple analytical model to predict the efficiency of transfer between the traps and provide evidence that the performance is limited only by particle dynamics in the magnetic trap. Transfer efficiencies up to 2.2% are reported. We show that efficiency can be traded for phase-space compression, and we report compression up to a factor of 350. Our results represent a 15-fold improvement over our previous demonstration of the cooling technique.
We propose a general method to cool the translational motion of molecules. Our method is an extension of single photon atomic cooling which was successfully implemented in our laboratory. Requiring a single event of absorption followed by a spontaneo
us emission, this method circumvents the need for a cycling transition and can be applied to any paramagnetic or polar molecule. In our approach, trapped molecules would be captured near their classical turning points in an optical dipole or RF-trap following an irreversible transition process.
We report the cooling of an atomic ensemble with light, where each atom scatters only a single photon on average. This is a general method that does not require a cycling transition and can be applied to atoms or molecules which are magnetically trap
ped. We discuss the application of this new approach to the cooling of hydrogenic atoms for the purpose of precision spectroscopy and fundamental tests.
