Thursday, 26 December 2019

thermodynamics - Maxwell's Demon - laser cooling


There’s an interesting article on Scientific American that tells how to cool individual atoms to within a very tiny fraction of Absolute Zero.


It uses two laser beams acting on a very cold rarified gas in a magnetic trap. Initially, all of the atoms are in one state. The first laser beam (call it red) only affects atoms in a second stable state. A second laser (call it orange), offset and parallel to the first of a different color is turned on. This laser switches atoms to the previously mentioned second stable state when it hits an atom.


These excited atoms cannot pass the first laser beam (the excited atoms rebound from this beam). This leads to a concentration of the excited atoms on the side of the second beam. All of the atoms will eventually cross the two beams and move into the smaller area, being compressed without raising their temperature (supposedly). The lasers are then turned off, the gas is allowed to expand (and cool) into its original volume and you end up with a lower temperature gas.


I’ve left the following question there, but haven’t gotten an answer (I keep getting notices that the comments have been added to, but even when I clear my browser cache, or use a different browser, I still don’t see them). So here is my question. Can you help me understand?




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