Long Range Interactions With Laser Cooled Neutral Atoms

Multiple scattering of light in a trap of laser cooled neutral atoms leads to repulsion forces between the atoms. The corresponding interactions have long range behavior in $1/r2$ and are thus similar to Coulomb interaction in an one component confined plasma. Consequences of these interactions will be described in this paper, including the limitation of the spatial density one can obtain in such systems and self‐sustained oscillations of the cloud.