Longitudinal and transverse relaxation in spin polarized hydrogen

Erik D. Nelson, William J. Mullin

Andrei E. Ruckenstein

Andrei E. Ruckenstein

Erik D. Nelson, William J. Mullin

Eric D. Siggia, Andrei E. Ruckenstein

The thermodynamic, hydrodynamic, and kinetic properties of a variety of metastable states accessible to spin-polarized hydrogen are examined. The state with Bose condensation in the two lowest hyperfine levels will phase separate at a rate determined from superfluid hydrodynamics. The transverse and longitudinal magnetic relaxation times are evaluated in the classical, quantum, and superfluid regimes.

Deok Young Lee, Sangkyung Lee, Sin Hyuk Yim

We demonstrate the measurement of the transverse spin relaxation rate of Xe without the influence of the Rb polarization-induced magnetic field gradient. The optical pumping beam and probe beam turn on and off repeatedly during the measurement to reduce the relaxation originating from the Rb polarization-induced magnetic field gradient. During the absence of the optical pumping beam, the nuclear spin of the noble gas atom does not experience the alkali-polarization-induced magnetic field gradient so that the transverse spin relaxation rate ( 1 / T 2 ) decreases. When the duty cycle reaches zero, the measured transverse relaxation time T 2 approaches the longitudinal spin relaxation time T 1 . Our method helps in roughly estimating the longitudinal spin relaxation time with a single measurement of the free induction decay.