A movable-cavity cold atom space clock

We present an experimental scheme of a cold atom space clock with a movable cavity. By using a single microwave cavity, we find that the clock has a significant advantage, i.e. the longitudinal cavity phase shift is eliminated. A theoretical analysis has been carried out in terms of the relation between the atomic transition probability and the velocity of the moving cavity by taking into account the velocity distribution of cold atoms. The requirements for the microwave power and its stability for atomic pi/2 excitation at different moving velocities of the cavity lead to the determination of the proper working parameters of the rubidium clock in frequency accuracy 10(-17). Finally, the mechanical stability for the scheme is analysed and the ways of solving the possible mechanical instability of the device are proposed.

The design of a controllable imaging device with the cold atomic medium

Under the circumstance of a Gaussian control field, the cold atomic medium with electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) turns out to be the special medium with the quadratic index distribution which is controllable online. In our study, the optical system occupies a portion of the EIT medium which acts as an imaging device. With the help of the Collins formula, the analytic expression for the spatial distribution of the probe field in the cold atomic medium is obtained as well as the location of the imaging. The methods for improving the visibility of the imaging are proposed in this paper. Moreover, we also show that the shapes of the images on the output are strongly influenced by the intensity of the control field, which provides a potential optical processing method.

Nonlinear spectroscopy of cold atoms in diffuse laser light

The nonlinear spectroscopy of cold atoms in the diffuse laser cooling system is studied in this paper. We present the theoretical models of the recoil-induced resonances (RIR) and the electromagnetically-induced absorption (EIA) of cold atoms in diffuse laser light, and show their signals in an experiment of cooling Rb-87 atomic vapor in an integrating sphere. The theoretical results are in good agreement with the experimental ones when the light intensity distribution in the integrating sphere is considered. The differences between nonlinear spectra of cold atoms in the diffuse laser light and in the optical molasses are also discussed. (c) 2009 Optical Society of America

Natural cone formation for fast ignition of laser fusion

We propose to utilize the leading pulse of a petawatt class laser to create a conic plasma channel in the dense plasmas. This plasma channel could serve as a natural cone to guide the main pulse to the cone tip, as behaves similarly to the physical Au cone. We estimate that the leading pulse of a petawatt laser could create a natural cone with cone tip only about 100 mu m away from the edge of compressed core plasma. The natural cone formation should be compatible for a good uniform compression and efficient fast heating of the imploded fuel.