  We present a detailed analysis of a robust and fast laser cooling scheme [J.
Cerrillo et al.,Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 043003 (2010)] on a three-level system. A
special laser configuration, applicable to trapped ions, atoms, or cantilevers,
designs a double-path quantum interference that eliminates the blue sideband in
addition to the carrier transition, thus excluding any heating process
involving up to one-phonon interactions. As a consequence, cooling achieves
vanishing phonon occupation up to first order in the Lamb-Dicke parameter
expansion. Underlying this scheme is a combined action of two cooling schemes
which makes the proposal very flexible under constraints of the physical
parameters such as laser intensity, detuning, or optical access, making it a
viable candidate for experimental implementation. Furthermore, it is
considerably faster than existing ground state cooling schemes. Its suitability
as a cooling scheme for several ions in a trap and three-dimensional cooling is
shown.
