Optimizing the catching of atoms or molecules in two-dimensional traps

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Single-photon cooling is a recently introduced method to cool atoms and molecules for which standard methods might not be applicable. We numerically examine this method in a two-dimensional wedge trap as well as in a two-dimensional harmonic trap. An element of the method is an optical dipole box trapping atoms irreversibly. We show that the cooling efficiency of the single-photon method can be improved by optimizing the trajectory of this optical dipole box.