All-optical gray lattice for atoms

We create a gray optical lattice structure using a blue detuned laser field coupling an atomic ground state of angular momentum J simultaneously to two excited states with angular momenta J and J-1. The atoms are cooled and trapped at locations of purely circular polarization. The cooling process efficiently accumulates almost half of the atomic population in the lowest-energy band, which is only weakly coupled to the light field. Very low kinetic temperatures are obtained by adiabatically reducing the optical potential. The dynamics of this process is analyzed using a full quantum Monte Carlo simulation. The calculations explicitly show the mapping of the band populations on the corresponding momentum intervals of the free atom. In an experiment with subrecoil momentum resolution we measure the band populations and find excellent absolute agreement with the theoretical calculations.