Forces between a single atom and its distant mirror image.
An excited-state atom whose emitted light is backreflected by a distant mirror can experience trapping forces, because the presence of the mirror modifies both the electromagnetic vacuum field and the atom's own radiation reaction field. We demonstrate this mechanical action using a single trapped barium ion. We observe the trapping conditions to be notably altered when the distant mirror is translated across an optical wavelength. The well-localized barium ion enables the spatial dependence of the forces to be measured explicitly. The experiment has implications for quantum information processing and may be regarded as the most elementary optical tweezers.
Bushev
Pavel
P
Institut für Experimentalphysik, Technikerstrasse 25, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
Wilson
Alex
A
Eschner
Jürgen
J
Raab
Christoph
C
Schmidt-Kaler
Ferdinand
F
Becher
Christoph
C
Blatt
Rainer
R