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Optical microtraps provide a strong spatial confinement for laser-cooledatoms. They can, e.g., be realized with strongly focused trapping light beamsor the optical near fields of nano-scale waveguides and photonicnanostructures. Atoms in such traps often experience strongly spatially varyingAC Stark shifts which are proportional to the magnetic quantum number of therespective energy level. These inhomogeneous fictitious magnetic fields cancause a displacement of the trapping potential that depends on the Zeemanstate. Hitherto, this effect was mainly perceived as detrimental. However, italso provides a means to probe and to manipulate the motional state of theatoms in the trap by driving transitions between Zeeman states. Furthermore, byapplying additional real or fictitious magnetic fields, the state-dependence ofthe trapping potential can be controlled. Here, using laser-cooled atoms thatare confined in a nanofiber-based optical dipole trap, we employ this controlin order to tune the microwave coupling of motional quantum states. We recordcorresponding microwave spectra which allow us to infer the trap parameters aswell as the temperature of the atoms. Finally, we reduce the mean number ofmotional quanta in one spatial dimension to $\langle n\rangle=0.3 \pm 0.1$ bymicrowave sideband cooling. Our work shows that the inherent fictitiousmagnetic fields in optical microtraps expand the experimental toolbox forinterrogating and manipulating cold atoms.

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