Laser cooling, friction and diffusion in three-level cascade system in squeezed vacuum

A theoretical study is carried out for the laser cooling of a moving three-level atom in a ladder configuration, driven by a bichromatic laser fields with a broad-band squeezed vacuum. The friction, diffusion coefficients and the equilibrium temperature are calculated numerically and shown graphically as a function of two-photon detunings for various cases of the squeezed vacuum. It is shown that the relative phases between the two coherent fields and the squeezed vacuum field play an important role in the cooling process. For a suitable choice of parameters, the atomic cooling temperature may be reduced to below that in the case of a vacuum, even down to two orders below the Doppler temperature limit. The efficiency of this cooling scheme is also analyzed.