Recycling Light from Atom Cooling

We tend to consider laser cooling from the perspective of the atoms that are being chilled. But the photons that carry away the heat may have interesting and useful properties, a new study suggests. Chiao-Hsuan Wang from the University of Maryland, College Park, and co-workers modeled the laser cooling of atoms inside a cavity. They found that the photons scattered by the atoms have a thermal energy distribution that resembles that of interacting particles. These photons might therefore be recycled and used to mimic other physical systems.