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Shukie
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I'm doing a small paper on Magneto-Optical Traps, trying to explain how they work and I just encountered another paper which talked about ground states and excited states (J = 0, J = 1) and magnetic substates (m = 0 for J = 0 and m = -1, 0 or 1 for J = 1). I understand what ground states and excited states are, but can someone explain magnetic substates?
Also, I'm confused by this:
It's from near the bottom of page 2 from http://physweb.bgu.ac.il/COURSES/LAB_C/Laser%20Cooling%20and%20trapping/colorado%20mot.pdf . Could anyone tell me in laymans terms what exactly the bolded sentence means? As far as I understand, the atoms absorb photons, which excites them, then they emit them. What does this have to do with the magnetic substate?
Edit: I see now that I probably should have put this in the Atomic, Solid State, Comp. Physics subforum.
Also, I'm confused by this:
In this simplified case we consider an atom with a J = 0 ground state and a J = 1
excited state, illuminated by circularly polarized beams of light coming from the left
and the right. Because of its polarization, the beam from the left can only excite transitions to the m = +1 state, while the beam from the right can only excite transitions to the m = -1 state. The magnetic field is zero in the center, increases linearly in the positive x direction, and decreases linearly in the negative x direction. This field perturbs the energy levels so that the [tex]\Delta[/tex]m = +1transition shifts to lower frequency if the atom moves to the left of the origin, while the [tex]\Delta[/tex]m = -1transition shifts to higher frequency.
It's from near the bottom of page 2 from http://physweb.bgu.ac.il/COURSES/LAB_C/Laser%20Cooling%20and%20trapping/colorado%20mot.pdf . Could anyone tell me in laymans terms what exactly the bolded sentence means? As far as I understand, the atoms absorb photons, which excites them, then they emit them. What does this have to do with the magnetic substate?
Edit: I see now that I probably should have put this in the Atomic, Solid State, Comp. Physics subforum.
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