Observations of the PSR B1259À63/SS 2883 binary system using the CANGAROO-II Cerenkov telescope are reported. This nearby binary consists of a 48 ms radio pulsar in a highly eccentric orbit around a Be star and offers a unique laboratory to investigate the interactions between the outflows of the pulsar and Be star at various distances. It has been pointed out that the relativistic pulsar wind and the dense mass outflow of the Be star may result in the emission of gamma rays up to TeV energies. We have observed the binary in 2000 and 2001, $47 and $157 days after the 2000 October periastron. Upper limits at the 0.13-0.54 crab level are obtained. A new model calculation for high-energy gamma-ray emission from the Be star outflow is introduced, and the estimated gammaray flux, considering bremsstrahlung, inverse Compton scattering, and the decay of neutral pions produced in proton-proton interactions, is found to be comparable to the upper limits of these observations. Comparing our results with these model calculations, we constrain the mass-outflow parameters of the Be star.

Optical pumping in a thin Cs vapor cell (end-wall gap 0.5–10 mm) transfers only atoms with small velocity components to a certain energy state. The non-Maxwellian velocity distribution is detected as a hyperfine-resolved spectrum by a double resonance technique using diode lasers. The observed spectral profiles are quantitatively reproduced by the rate-equation analysis in which the velocity-dependent surface relaxation process is taken into account.

We propose a novel method of stabilizing laser oscillation frequency that uses a sub-Doppler spectrum of atoms in a thin vapor cell. An extended-cavity diode laser is frequency-locked to a hyperfine component of the Cs-D(2) line. In the Allan-variance measurements on the beat note between two lasers thus stabilized, a frequency stability of 6.6x10(-11) is achieved at an averaging time of 5.8 s. The frequency can be controlled even when the laser beam intensity is as small as 70 nW/cm(2).

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