Optical pumping of a lithium atomic beam for atom interferometry

Gillot, Jonathan; Gauguet, Alexandre; Büchner, Matthias; Vigué, J.

doi:10.1140/epjd/e2013-40259-2

Cited by 20 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(81 reference statements)

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“…The m F value measured on an axis parallel to the local magnetic field is conserved along the atom propagation, if the condition for an adiabatic transport is fulfilled and our measurements of the pumping efficiency rule out any Majorana spin-flip of the optically pumped atoms along their propagation. We have characterized the pumping efficiency by an atom interferometric method and we have found that the pumped sublevel has a fraction of the total population near 95 ± 5% [24]. Our results are recalled in table 3.…”

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confidence: 87%

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Measurement of the Aharonov-Casher geometric phase with a separated-arm atom interferometer

et al. 2014

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-In this letter, we report a measurement of the Aharonov-Casher (AC) geometric phase with our lithium atom interferometer. The AC phase appears when a particle carrying a magnetic dipole propagates in a transverse electric field. The first measurement of the AC phase was done with a neutron interferometer in 1989 by A. Cimmino et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 380, 1989) and all the following experiments were done with Ramsey or Ramsey-Bordé interferometers with molecules or atoms. In our experiment, we use lithium atoms pumped in a single hyperfineZeeman sublevel and we measure the AC-phase by applying opposite electric fields on the two interferometer arms. Our measurements are in good agreement with the expected theoretical values and they prove that this phase is independent of the atom velocity.In 1984, Y. Aharonov, and A. Casher [1] discovered the geometric phase which is called by their name. This phase appears when a particle with a magnetic dipole interacts with an electric field perpendicular to both the particle velocity and to the magnetic dipole. This phase had also been discussed by J. Anandan [2], who did not remark its unusual properties. The Aharonov-Casher (AC) phase is the second example of a geometric phase, after the Aharonov-Bohm phase [3]. A third geometric phase predicted in 1993/1994 by X.-G. He, B.H.J. McKellar [4] and by M. Wilkens [5] is now named the He-McKellarWilkens (HMW) phase, and we have recently measured this phase [6,7]. This phase appears, if an electric dipole travels in a magnetic field B and if the scalar triple product of the dipole, B and the velocity vectors is not zero. All these phases belong to the general class of geometric phases discussed by M.V. Berry in 1984 [8,9] and they are very interesting because they strongly differ from dynamical phases: geometric phases modify the wave propagation in the absence of any force on the particle; they are independent of the modulus of the particle velocity but they change sign if the velocity is reversed.In the present letter, we describe measurements of the AC phase shift using a separated-arm 7 Li atom interferometer using Bragg diffraction on laser standing waves.The internal quantum state of the atom is the same in the two interferometer arms and we apply opposite electric fields and a common magnetic field on the two interferometer arms. The atom fringes are phase shifted by both the AC and the HMW phases. The AC phase is proportional to the atom magnetic dipole moment, thus depends on the magnetic sublevel, while the HMW phase is independent. By combining measurements made with the 7 Li atoms pumped in F = 2 either in m F = +2 or in m F = −2, we can extract both phases. In the following, we focus on the AC phase measurements. As explained below, this is the first AC phase measurement of this type and the sensitivity of our atom interferometer has enabled us to test the velocity dependence of this phase.Since its theoretical discovery, the AC phase has been tested in five different experiments [10][11][12][13]...

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confidence: 87%

“…Using eq. (3) and assuming B mot parallel to e B , we predict an AC phase slope |∂ϕ AC /∂V | = (8.57 ± 0.05) × 10 −5 rad/V with an uncertainty due to the p-3 Table 3: The measured population P (F = 2, mF ) after optical pumping for different atom velocities vm [24].…”

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confidence: 96%

Measurement of the Aharonov-Casher geometric phase with a separated-arm atom interferometer

et al. 2014

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“…The longitudinal width of the ensemble is assumed to be 50 μm in order to reduce the effect of group-velocity mismatch between the laser pump and electron probe pulses. The density of the lithium atom ensemble is assumed to be 10 10 cm −3 [63], so that the projected area density of the lithium atom gas is ρ(b) = 5.0 × 10 7 cm −2 .…”

Section: Simulation Detailsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time-resolved electron(e,2e)momentum spectroscopy: Application to laser-driven electron population transfer in atoms

Shao

Starace

2018

Phys. Rev. A

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Owing to its ability to provide unique information on electron dynamics, time-resolved electron momentum spectroscopy (EMS) is used to study theoretically a laser-driven electronic motion in atoms. Specifically, a chirped laser pulse is used to adiabatically transfer the populations of lithium atoms from the ground state to the first excited state. During this process, impact ionization near the Bethe ridge by time-delayed ultrashort, high-energy electron pulses is used to image the instantaneous momentum density of this electronic population transfer. Simulations with 100 fs and 1 fs pulse durations demonstrate the capability of EMS to image the time-varying momentum density, including its change of symmetry as the population transfer progresses. Moreover, the spectra corresponding to different pulse durations reveal different kinds of electronic motion. We discuss how to properly interpret these time-resolved EMS spectra, which represent a generalization of time-independent EMS.

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“…2(b)). Optical pumping on the D 1 line therefore avoids the slightly off-resonant transitions ubiquitous on the D 2 line [39]. In each of the six 3D MOT beams, we use 1.5 mW of D 2 MOT repump light to recover atoms that decay to |F = 1 .…”

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Recoil-Sensitive Lithium Interferometer without a Subrecoil Sample

et al. 2017

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We report simultaneous conjugate Ramsey-Bordé interferometers with a sample of low-mass (lithium-7) atoms at 50 times the recoil temperature. We optically pump the atoms to a magnetically insensitive state using the 2S 1/2 − 2P 1/2 line. Fast stimulated Raman beam splitters address a broad velocity class and unavoidably drive two conjugate interferometers that overlap spatially. We show that detecting the summed interference signals of both interferometers, using state labeling, allows recoil measurements and suppression of phase noise from vibrations. The use of "warm" atoms allows for simple, efficient, and high-flux atom sources and broadens the applicability of recoil-sensitive interferometry to particles that remain difficult to trap and cool.

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Optical pumping of a lithium atomic beam for atom interferometry

Cited by 20 publications

References 54 publications

Measurement of the Aharonov-Casher geometric phase with a separated-arm atom interferometer

Measurement of the Aharonov-Casher geometric phase with a separated-arm atom interferometer

Time-resolved electron(e,2e)momentum spectroscopy: Application to laser-driven electron population transfer in atoms

Recoil-Sensitive Lithium Interferometer without a Subrecoil Sample

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