Laser trapping of charged particles

CECILIA CORMICK; GIOVANNA MORIGI

Darlington

Conferencia; 1st European Conference on Trapped Ions; 2010

This work theoretically addresses the trapping of an ionized atomwith a single valence electron by means of lasers, analyzing qualitatively and quantitatively the consequences of the net charge of the particle. In our model, the coupling between the ion and the electromagnetic field includes the charge monopole and the internal dipole, within a multipolar expansion of the interaction Hamiltonian. Specifically, we perform a Power-Zienau-Woolley transformation, taking into account the motion of the center of mass. The netcharge produces a correction in the atomic dipole that is of order m e /M, with m e the electron mass and M the total mass of the ion. With respect to neutral atoms, there is also an extra coupling to the laser field that can be approximated by that of the monopole located at the position of the center of mass. These additional effects, however, are shown to be very small compared to the dominant dipolar trapping term.