Preparation of ultralow atomic velocities by transforming bound states into tunneling resonances

A procedure is proposed to prepare the average and width of the velocity distribution of ultracold atoms. The atoms are set initially in the ground state of an optical trap formed by an inner red-detuned-laser well and an outer blue-detuned-laser barrier. Then the well and barrier parameters are changed until the ground state becomes a Breit-Wigner tunneling resonance. An optimal time dependence of the switching process, between the sudden and adiabatic limits, adjusts the final translational energies of the leaking atoms to the Lorentzian distribution of the resonance state.