Fictitious magnetic-field gradients in optical microtraps as an experimental tool for interrogating and manipulating cold atoms

Optical microtraps provide a strong spatial confinement for laser-cooled atoms. They can, e.g., be realized with strongly focused trapping light beams or the optical near fields of nanoscale waveguides and photonic nanostructures. Atoms in such traps often experience strongly spatially varying ac Stark shifts which are proportional to the magnetic quantum number of the respective energy level. These inhomogeneous fictitious magnetic fields can cause a displacement of the trapping potential that depends on the Zeeman state. Hitherto, this effect was mainly perceived as detrimental in optical microtraps. However, it also provides a means to probe and to manipulate the motional state of the atoms in the trap by driving transitions between Zeeman states. Furthermore, by applying additional real or fictitious magnetic fields, the state dependence of the trapping potential can be controlled. Here, using laser-cooled atoms that are confined in a nanofiber-based optical dipole trap, we employ this control in order to tune the microwave coupling of motional quantum states. We record corresponding microwave spectra which allow us to infer the trap parameters as well as the temperature of the atoms. Finally, we reduce the mean number of motional quanta in one spatial dimension to < n > = 0.3(1) by microwave sideband cooling. Our work shows that the inherent fictitious magnetic fields in optical microtraps expand the experimental toolbox for interrogating and manipulating cold atoms.