Excitation of orientation and alignment by unpolarized light

Yongqi Shi, Antoine Weis

J. H. Macek, Donal J. Burns

N. A. Dovator, A. I. Okunevich

It is shown that, upon excitation of the magnetic resonance in a system of aligned atoms with unequally spaced sublevels, the atoms should become oriented. This orientation was detected experimentally for Cs atoms pumped by unpolarized light in the magnetic field of the Earth.

Marcis P. Auzinsh, R. Ferber

W. Bruce Hawkins

Sodium atoms have been oriented by means of circularly polarized resonance radiation. The amount of orientation agrees with that calculated from the intensity of the light source used. The polarization of the light scattered from the sodium sample varies in the expected manner when the light intensity and applied magnetic field are varied. Illumination with unpolarized resonance radiation is shown to result in alignment of the sodium atoms. The largest degree of orientation achieved corresponds to an average value for the nuclear, electronic, and total angular momenta of ${\overline{M}}_{I}=0.180=0.120I$, ${\overline{M}}_{S}=0.035=0.070S$, ${\overline{M}}_{F}=0.216=0.108F$, respectively.

J Lehner, Henryk Paul, G. S. Agarwal