We analyze quantitatively the generation of a continuous beam of atoms by the periodic injection of individual packets in a guide, followed by their overlapping. We show that slowing the packets using a moving mirror before their overlapping enables an optimal gain on the phase space density of the generated beam. This is interpreted as a Maxwell’s demon type strategy as the experimentalist exploits the information on the position and velocity of the center of mass of each packet.
View online : Phys. Rev. A, 78, 015401 (2008)