Possibility of applying laser-cooling techniques to the observation of collective quantum effects

Abstract

Obtaining ultracold atomic gases is now possible because of laser cooling, and it has been proposed to search for collective quantum effects in these gases. In this paper, I show that the observation of such effects seems unlikely in alkali-metal vapors, at least in a noncondensed phase. Finally, I discuss briefly the effects of radiative trapping and long-range resonance dipole interactions on laser cooling at high atomic densities, and I show that this phenomenon introduces severe limitations of the maximum attainable density, at least for the most elementary laser-cooling scheme.