Ramsey-like measurement of the decoherence rate between Zeeman sub-levels

Abstract

Two-photon processes that involve different sub-levels of the ground state of an atom, are highly sensitive to depopulation and decoherence within the ground state. For example, the spectral width of electromagnetically induced transparency resonances in $\Lambda -$type system, are strongly affected by the ground state depopulation and decoherence rates. We present a direct measurement of decay rates between hyperfine and Zeeman sub-levels in the ground state of ${}^{87}$Rb vapor. Similar to the relaxation-in-the-dark technique, pumping lasers are used to pre-align the atomic vapor in a well defined quantum state. The free propagation of the atomic state is monitored using a Ramsey-like method. Coherence times in the range 1-10 ms were measured for room temperature atomic vapor. In the range of the experimental parameters used in this study, the dominant process inducing Zeeman decoherence is the spin-exchange collisions between rubidium atoms.

arXiv comment7 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (3)

• Storage of light in atomic vapor
• Ultra-Slow Light and Enhanced Nonlinear Optical Effects in a Coherently Driven Hot Atomic Gas
• Relaxation of atomic polarization in paraffin-coated cesium vapor cells

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Self-Similar Modes of Coherent Diffusion
• Producing slow light in warm alkali vapor using electromagnetically induced transparency
• Strong Coherent Light Amplification with Double Electromagnetically Induced Transparency Coherences
• Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in $\Lambda$-systems of ${}^{87}Rb$ atom in magnetic field
• Equilibrium avalanches in spin glasses
• All-optical reconstruction of atomic ground-state population
• Repumping ground-state population in a coherently driven atomic resonance