Resonance interaction between cold Rb atoms and a frequency comb

Full text: A long life time of atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT) makes it a powerful tool to study interactions with optical fields processing small cross sections. Since the life time in MOT can reach a few seconds, even processes with characteristic rates of 1 -s1 can be easily analyzed if they result in losses of trapped atoms. We have investigated the interaction of laser-cooled 87Rb atoms in a MOT with a femtosecond (fs) laser radiation in the spectral region 760-820 nm. We show that in a wide range of average intensities of the fs laser field (< 300 W/cm2) the dominating process is the cascade ionization. In this case the femtosecond radiation interacts with the atomic ensemble both as spectrally-narrow components (a frequency comb) and as a powerful ionizing laser field. Atoms excited by a single mode of a frequency comb from the 5P3/2(F = 3) to the 5D5/2(F = 2, 3, 4) hyperfine sublevels are consequently ionized by a full power of the fs laser from the 5D level to the continuum. By tuning the repetition rate frep of the fs laser we observe the periodic spectrum in the MOT luminescence at 780 nm (the cooling transition) reproducing the hyperfine structure of the 5D level. We have quantitatively analyzed the ionization of the 5D5/2 level by monitoring the loading rate of the MOT at different powers of the fs laser radiation using an auxiliary cw laser locked to the 5P3/2(F = 3) → 5D5/2(F = 4) at 776 nm. A sensitive method allowing accurate determination of the 5/2 5D level population is developed. (author)