COOLING OF A TRAPPED ION COUPLED STRONGLY TO A QUANTIZED CAVITY MODE

The interaction of a trapped two-level ion, confined in a harmonic potential, with a quantized cavity mode of the radiation field is studied theoretically. The ion is considered to be spatially localized on the scale of the optical wavelength (Lamb-Dicke limit), and the ion-cavity-mode coupling is assumed to be larger than or comparable to the spontaneous emission and cavity-mode loss rates. With broadband thermal light driving the cavity mode, we show that the cooling rates and final temperatures of the trapped-ion motion reflect the Jaynes-Cummings energy spectrum of the strongly-coupled ion-cavity system.