Reflection and diffraction of atomic de Broglie waves by evanescent laser waves. Bare-state method

Two methods are presented for the investigation of the reflection and diffraction of atoms by gratings formed either by standing or travelling evanescent laser waves. Both methods use the bare-state rather than dressed-state picture. One method is based on the Born series, whereas the other is based on the Laplace transformation of the coupled differential equations. The two methods yield the same theoretical expressions for the reflected and diffracted atomic waves in the whole space including the interaction and the asymptotic regions. 1 ref., 1 fig