  The semiclassical dynamics of atoms are theoretically studied, when the atoms
are confined inside a standing-wave high-finesse resonator. The atoms are
cooled by scattering processes in which the photons of a transverse laser are
coherently scattered into the cavity mode. We derive a Fokker-Planck equation
for the atomic center-of-mass variables which allows us to determine the
equations of motion in the semiclassical limit for any value of the intensity
of the laser field. We extract its prediction for the dynamics when the
resonator is essentially in the vacuum state and the atoms are cooled by
scattering photons into the cavity mode, which then decays. Its predictions for
the stationary atomic distribution are compared with the ones of the
Fokker-Planck equation in [P. Domokos, P. Horak, and H. Ritsch, J. Phys. B 34,
187 (2001)], which has been derived under different assumptions. We find full
agreement in the considered parameter regime.
