Production and detection of atomic hexadecapole at Earth's magnetic field

Abstract

Anisotropy of atomic states is characterized by population differences and coherences between Zeeman sublevels. It can be efficiently created and probed via resonant interactions with light, the technique which is at the heart of modern atomic clocks and magnetometers. Recently, nonlinear magneto-optical techniques have been developed for selective production and detection of higher polarization moments, hexadecapole and hexacontatetrapole, in the ground states of the alkali atoms. Extension of these techniques into the range of geomagnetic fields is important for practical applications. This is because hexadecapole polarization corresponding to the $\Delta M=4$ Zeeman coherence, with maximum possible $\Delta M$ for electronic angular momentum $J=1/2$ and nuclear spin $I=3/2$, is insensitive to the nonlinear Zeeman effect (NLZ). This is of particular interest because NLZ normally leads to resonance splitting and systematic errors in atomic magnetometers. However, optical signals due to the hexadecapole moment decline sharply as a function of magnetic field. We report a novel method that allows selective creation of a macroscopic long-lived ground-state hexadecapole polarization. The immunity of the hexadecapole signal to NLZ is demonstrated with F=2 ${}^{87}$Rb atoms at Earth's field.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Optical Magnetometry
• Experimental demonstration of quantum memory for light
• Nonlinear magneto-optical rotation with frequency-modulated light in the geophysical field range
• Influence of magnetic-field inhomogeneity on nonlinear magneto-optical resonances

Cited by in corpus (16)

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• Cancellation of nonlinear Zeeman shifts with light shifts
• Heading errors in all-optical alkali-vapor magnetometers in geomagnetic fields
• Nonlinear magneto-optical rotation in the presence of radio-frequency field
• Shot-noise-limited magnetometer with sub-pT sensitivity at room temperature
• Quantum atom-light interfaces in the gaussian description for spin-1 systems
• A dual-isotope rubidium comagnetometer to search for anomalous long-range spin-mass (spin-gravity) couplings of the proton
• Light-induced polarization effects in atoms with partially resolved hyperfine structure and applications to absorption, fluorescence, and nonlinear magneto-optical rotation
• Heading-error-free optical atomic magnetometry in the Earth-field range
• Spin squeezing of high-spin, spatially extended quantum fields
• Magnetometric sensitivity optimization for nonlinear optical rotation with frequency-modulated light: rubidium D2 line
• Magnetometer suitable for Earth field measurement based on transient atomic response
• Tailoring quantum superpositions with linearly polarized amplitude-modulated light
• Electric-field-induced change of alkali-metal vapor density in paraffin-coated cells
• Correcting heading errors in optically pumped magnetometers through microwave interrogation
• Investigating the hyperfine systematic error and relative phase in low spin-polarization alkali FID magnetometers