Laser cooling of atomic motion enables advances in quantum information and precision metrology. However, the spatial spreading of subrecoil-laser-cooled atoms—crucial for understanding cooling mechanisms and atomic confinement—remains largely unexplored. Here, we analyze anomalous diffusion in subrecoil-laser-cooled atoms, where a velocity-dependent fluorescence rate $R(v)\propto |v{|}^{\alpha }$ governs transport properties. By tuning $\alpha$, we uncover transitions between normal, subdiffusive, and superdiffusive regimes. Notably, at $\alpha =3/2$, diffusion is minimized, leading to optimal atomic confinement. We further identify a conceptual link between subrecoil laser cooling and the Pomeau-Manneville map from nonlinear dynamics, revealing that anomalous diffusion can generically exhibit a nontrivial minimum in spatial spreading—even across seemingly unrelated physical systems.

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• Nonequilibrium statistical mechanics
• Stochastic processes