Abstract

The recent fascinating progress on laser cooling is the result of the close connection between theoretical work and the rapid technological advances in laser sources, particularly in the field of powerful semiconductor and solid-state lasers operating over a wide range of optical and near-infrared frequencies. The very close international and personal collaboration amongst the researchers resulting in a direct link between experimental data and theoretical calculations which characterize work in this field, have been important factors in the rapid comprehension of the subtle and beautiful phenomena involved in laser manipulation.

This Enrico Fermi school is the first formal school fully devoted to this topic. The theoretical part of the book includes contributions on the framework for the study of the photon momentum exchanges in the absence of relaxation, recent mechanisms of laser cooling, an analysis of the cooling forces, analysis of atomic and molecular beams, cooling through coherent population trapping and the relation between laser cooling and quantum nondemolition measurements. The experimental section deals with topics such as, an analysis of atomic and molecular beams, methods and applications of laser cooling, advances in laser cooling and the new exciting field of atomic interferometry.

All students and researchers working in this field will welcome this excellent review of research and progress in laser cooling, so strongly linked to the fundamental understanding of physics.