Optical cooling revisited

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Abstract
The results of a recent experiment on the mechanical interaction of a bichromatic light beam with a single threelevel ion serve to redefine laser cooling of ions in a trap and of atoms in standing light waves. Novel variants of light forces are demonstrated. They are caused by stimulated Raman-type two-photon transitions combined with spontaneous Raman scattering and by all-stimulated parametric interaction. These efficient processes parallel the generation of a stimulated light force in a standing wave and the operation of a free-electron laser, respectively. The latter force imposes no natural limit on the residual excitation energy of trapped particles.