  We report 2D confinement of Rb 87 atoms in a Laguerre-Gaussian laser beam.
Changing of the sign of the detuning from the atomic resonance dramatically
alters the geometry of the confinement. With the laser detuned to the blue, the
atoms are confined to the dark, central node of the Laguerre-Gaussian laser
mode. This trapping method leads to low ac Stark shifts to the atomic levels.
Alternatively, by detuning the laser to the red of the resonance, we confine
atoms to the high intensity outer ring in a multiply-connected, toroidal
configuration. We model the confined atoms to determine azimuthal intensity
variations of the trapping laser, caused by slight misalignments of the
Laguerre-Gaussian mode generating optics.
