Question 2 b) of the attatched PDF
In a laser cooling experiment, the transition 52S1/2 : F = 2 to 52P3/2; F’ = 3 is
excited by light that has frequency detuning delta = Gamma / 2.
Selection rules dictate that the excited state decays back to the initial state so there is a nearly closed cycle of absorption and spontaneous emission, but there is some o ff-resonant excitation to
the F’ = 2 hyper ne level which can decay to F = 1 and be ‘lost’ from the cycle.
The F’ = 2 level lies about 45Gamma below the F’ = 3 level.
Estimate the average number of photons scattered by an atom before it falls into the lower hyper fine
level of the ground state con guration. Assume I = ISAT and that the transitions
have similar strengths.