  We extend an earlier semiclassical model to describe the dissipative motion
of N atoms coupled to M modes inside a coherently driven high-finesse cavity.
The description includes momentum diffusion via spontaneous emission and cavity
decay. Simple analytical formulas for the steady-state temperature and the
cooling time for a single atom are derived and show surprisingly good agreement
with direct stochastic simulations of the semiclassical equations for N atoms
with properly scaled parameters. A thorough comparison with standard free-space
Doppler cooling is performed and yields a lower temperature and a cooling time
enhancement by a factor of M times the square of the ratio of the atom-field
coupling constant to the cavity decay rate. Finally it is shown that laser
cooling with negligible spontaneous emission should indeed be possible,
especially for relatively light particles in a strongly coupled field
configuration.
