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Physical Review Letters

Cavity-Enhanced Parity-Nonconserving Optical Rotation in Metastable Xe and Hg

Lykourgos Bougas, George E. Katsoprinakis, Wolf von Klitzing, Jonathan R. Sapirstein, Theodore Peter Rakitzis

Published May 25, 2012• 37 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We propose the measurement of cavity-enhanced parity-nonconserving (PNC) optical rotation in several transitions of metastable Xe and Hg, including Xe ${(}^{2}{P}_{3/2}^{o})6s\text{ }^{2}[3/2{]}_{2}^{o}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{(}^{2}{P}_{1/2}^{o})6s\text{ }^{2}[1/2{]}_{1}^{o}$ and Hg $6s6p\text{ }^{3}P_{2}^{o}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}6s6p\text{ }^{1}P_{1}^{o}$, with calculated amplitude ratios of ${E}_{1}^{\mathrm{PNC}}/M1=11\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$ and $10\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}$, respectively. We demonstrate the use of a high-finesse bow-tie cavity with counterpropagating beams and a longitudinal magnetic field, which allows the absolute measurement of chiral optical rotation, with a path length enhancement of about ${10}^{4}$, necessary for PNC measurement from available column densities of ${10}^{14}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ for metastable Xe or Hg. Rapid PNC-signal reversal, allowing robust background subtraction, is achieved by shifting the cavity resonance to an opposite polarization mode or by inverting the magnetic field. The precise measurement of isotope and nuclear-spin dependent ${E}_{1}^{\mathrm{PNC}}$ amplitudes provides a sensitive low-energy test of the standard model.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.108.210801

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We propose the measurement of cavity-enhanced parity-nonconserving (PNC) optical rotation in several transitions of metastable Xe and Hg, including Xe (2P3/2o)6s 2[3/2]2o\ensuremath→(2P1/2o)6s 2[1/2]1o{(}^{2}{P}_{3/2}^{o})6s\text{ }^{2}[3/2{]}_{2}^{o}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{(}^{2}{P}_{1/2}^{o})6s\text{ }^{2}[1/2{]}_{1}^{o}(2P3/2o​)6s 2[3/2]2o​\ensuremath→(2P1/2o​)6s 2[1/2]1o​ and Hg 6s6p 3P2o\ensuremath→6s6p 1P1o6s6p\text{ }^{3}P_{2}^{o}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}6s6p\text{ }^{1}P_{1}^{o}6s6p 3P2o​\ensuremath→6s6p 1P1o​, with calculated amplitude ratios of E1PNC/M1=11\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8{E}_{1}^{\mathrm{PNC}}/M1=11\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}E1PNC​/M1=11\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8 and 10\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−810\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}8}10\ifmmode×\else\texttimes\fi10\ensuremath−8, respectively. We demonstrate the use of a high-finesse bow-tie cavity with counterpropagating beams and a longitudinal magnetic field, which allows the absolute measurement of chiral optical rotation, with a path length enhancement of about 104{10}^{4}104, necessary for PNC measurement from available column densities of 1014  cm\ensuremath−2{10}^{14}\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}2}1014  cm\ensuremath−2 for metastable Xe or Hg. Rapid PNC-signal reversal, allowing robust background subtraction, is achieved by shifting the cavity resonance to an opposite polarization mode or by inverting the magnetic field. The precise measurement of isotope and nuclear-spin dependent E1PNC{E}_{1}^{\mathrm{PNC}}E1PNC​ amplitudes provides a sensitive low-energy test of the standard model.
It is experimentally demonstrated that a narrow band continuous wave (cw) light source can be used in combination with a high-finesse optically stable cavity to perform sensitive, high-resolution direct absorption and optical rotation spectroscopy in an amazingly simple experimental setup, using ideas from the field of cavity ring down spectroscopy. Light from a scanning narrow band cw laser is coupled into the cavity via accidental coincidences of the laser frequency with the frequency of one of the multitude of modes of the cavity. The absorption and polarization rotation information is extracted from a measurement of the time-integrated light intensity leaking out of the cavity as a function of laser wavelength.
We present a new technique based on two-pathway optical coherent control for the sensitive detection and precise measurement of highly-forbidden transitions in atomic systems. Specifically, we show that (ωωω, 2ωωω) coherent control can be applied to the measurement of the magnetic dipole and electroweak parity nonconserving amplitudes in atomic cesium, with the principal advantage of reduced systematic errors related to field reversals often encountered in previous measurements of these effects. We present a complete analysis in one specific geometry, and discuss prospects for improved laboratory determinations of these weak transition amplitudes.
Precision measurements based on optically detected nuclear magnetic resonance offer exquisite sensitivity to absolute shifts in spin transition frequencies, with potential applications in fundamental physics experiments and inertial sensing. We investigate 13C nuclear spins in diamond as a candidate system for solid-state implementations, which hold the promise for high-fidelity readout of large numbers of coherent nuclear spins in millitesla or lower magnetic fields. We demonstrate a technique that allows for both optical polarization and readout of large ensembles of ~10^{16} polarized nuclear spins. Our method takes advantage of state-selective Landau-Zener transitions under microwave frequency sweeping, which bidirectionally transfer spin polarization between Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) electron spins and remote 13C nuclear spins. Using natural isotopic abundance diamonds with nitrogen densities of ~0.5-10 ppm, we perform optically-detected 13C Ramsey spectroscopy and realize a nuclear-spin-dependent fluorescence contrast exceeding 0.5% peak-to-peak. We observe nuclear spin dephasing times T2*~2 ms that only modestly improve with homonuclear dipolar decoupling, indicating that they are limited by the longitudinal spin relaxation of nearby NV electron spins. We study the magnetic field dependence of the optical readout and find comparable contrast and dephasing times for magnetic fields in the range 8-20 mT. Our method can be interpreted as a type of repetitive readout, where each NV center optically reads out the spin state of ~10^2 nuclei before nuclear spins depolarize.
A study of the physics of a nuclear magnetic resonance gyroscope is described. Experimental results in nuclear polarization and relaxation in 3He are obtained using an optical pumping apparatus and a high resolution rf spectroscopic technique. Polarization in the metastable states of the heavy noble gases (20, 21 Ne, 129, 132 Xe) was observed using a similar optical pumping apparatus. A sensitive detection method based on optical polarization of an excited state transition is developed and compared with the conventional method of monitoring optical transmission through the optical pumping cell. A new concept for the optical pumping of odd-mass-numbered heavy noble was isotopes to provide for ground-state nuclear polarization is discussed. Significant polarization in excited state neon was observed via collisional transfer from optically pumped helium in a cell filled with a mixture of helium and neon isotopes. The measured polarization was essentially independent of the isotopic composition. (Author)
The signal to noise ratio in atomic magnetometry is fundamentally limited by the optical depth of the atomic ensemble. During the last decade, different technics for optical depth enhancement has been developed by several groups, some of them involving the implementation of an optical cavity. This thesis evaluates the performance of such an implementation by the polarization read out noise analysis of an optical cavity with similar characteristics as the already implemented by other groups. We obtained an estimated value for the signal to noise ratio enhancement with a cavity of 814 Finesse, and we studied the behaviour of the different sources of polarization noise in this system.