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Physical Review A

Inhomogeneous light shift in alkali-metal atoms

James C. Camparo, R. P. Frueholz, C. H. Volk

Published Apr 1, 1983• 81 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The dynamic Stark shift of an inhomogeneously broadened spectral transition has been studied. Our measurements show a shift in the observed $^{87}\mathrm{Rb}$ ground-state hyperfine transition which has a nonlinear dependence on light intensity when the conditions for inhomogeneous broadening are met. The nonlinearity is the result of light-intensity gradients in the signal volume, which produce an inhomogeneously broadened asymmetric microwave transition. We show that our measurements are in full agreement with the second-order perturbation-theory treatment of light-induced energy-level shifts, when the effects of inhomogeneities are properly taken into consideration. The effects of inhomogeneous broadening must be carefully considered when extracting oscillator strengths from light-shift data, or when performing high-precision laser spectroscopy.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.27.1914

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The dynamic Stark shift of an inhomogeneously broadened spectral transition has been studied. Our measurements show a shift in the observed 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb ground-state hyperfine transition which has a nonlinear dependence on light intensity when the conditions for inhomogeneous broadening are met. The nonlinearity is the result of light-intensity gradients in the signal volume, which produce an inhomogeneously broadened asymmetric microwave transition. We show that our measurements are in full agreement with the second-order perturbation-theory treatment of light-induced energy-level shifts, when the effects of inhomogeneities are properly taken into consideration. The effects of inhomogeneous broadening must be carefully considered when extracting oscillator strengths from light-shift data, or when performing high-precision laser spectroscopy.
The dynamic Stark shift of an inhomogeneously broadened spectral transition has been studied. Our measurements show a shift in the observed 87 Rb ground-state hyperfine transition, which has a nonlinear dependence on light intensity when the conditions for inhomogeneous broadening are met. The nonlinearity is the result of light-intensity gradients in the signal volume, which produce an inhomogeneously broadened asymmetric microwave transition. We show that our measurements are in full agreement with the second-order perturbation-theory treatment of light-induced energy-level shifts when the effects of inhomogeneities are properly taken into consideration. The effects of inhomogeneous broadening must be carefully considered when one extracts oscillator strengths from light-shift data, or performs high-precision laser spectroscopy. Originator-supplied keywords include: AC stark effect, Atomic clocks, Atomic line shapes, Light shifts.
We propose a way to eliminate the inhomogeneous broadening for a ground-state hyperfine transition of an alkali metal atom in an optical trap by using a properly polarized trapping field. The ac Stark shift contribution from the vector polarizability has opposite sign for a pair of ground hyperfine levels. It can be used to eliminate the inhomogeneous broadening from the difference in the scalar polarizbilities due to the hyperfine splitting. The size of the vector term is determined by the polarization state of the trapping field, and by controlling the polarization tightly one can achieve a very narrow linewidth. We estimate required tolerance in the polarization control to achieve 1-Hz linewidth for a specific case of a cesium atom. This proposal has significant implications for an electric dipole moment measurement using cesium atoms and quantum information processing using an optical lattice.
The ac Stark shift (also known as the ``light shift'') is one of the most important physical processes that arises in precision spectroscopy, affecting the basic understanding of field-matter interactions, measurements of fundamental constants, and even the atomic clocks onboard GPS satellites. Although the theory of the ac Stark shift was fully developed by the 1960s and 1970s, precision tests of theory have, for the most part, been few. Taking advantage of recent developments in atomic clock technology, specifically the pulsed approach to atomic signal generation, which allows frequency measurements with a resolution of $\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}15}$, we demonstrate a methodology for measuring the ac Stark shift. Here, we report results from a precision examination of the ac Stark shift in a vapor phase system, examining the resonant frequency of the 87Rb^{87}\text{Rb}87Rb 0-0 hyperfine transition for a perturbing laser tuned over a broad optical frequency range (18 GHz) around the D1{D}_{1}D1​ absorption resonance. Over the full frequency range the agreement between semiclassical theory and experiment is very good (better than $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$), and in our experiments we test both the frequency dependence of the scalar and tensor components of the light shift.
We perform spectroscopy on the hyperfine splitting of 85^{85}85Rb atoms trapped in far-off-resonance optical traps. The existence of a spatially dependent shift in the energy levels is shown to induce an inherent dephasing effect, which causes a broadening of the spectroscopic line and hence an inhomogeneous loss of atomic coherence at a much faster rate than the homogeneous one caused by spontaneous photon scattering. We present here a number of approaches for reducing this inhomogeneous broadening, based on trap geometry, additional laser fields, and novel microwave pulse sequences. We then show how hyperfine spectroscopy can be used to study quantum dynamics of optically trapped atoms.
A generalized model for the magnetic resonance signal corresponding to the 0-0 hyperfine transition in an optically pumped alkali-metal vapor is presented. Under conditions of microwave power broadening, the model predicts ``anomalous'' light broadening and ``anomalous'' relaxation narrowing of the magnetic resonance linewidth. Good agreement between theory and experiment was obtained in an experiment that confirmed the prediction of anomalous light broadening. These results show that the 0-0 hyperfine transition cannot be described as a simple two-level system; rather, the alkali-atom's nuclear spin plays an important role in determining the magnetic resonance linewidth.