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Physical Review Applied

Collision-Sensitive Spin Noise

Shiming Song, Min Jiang, Yushu Qin, Yu Tong, Wenzhe Zhang, Xi Qin, Ren‐Bao Liu, Xinhua Peng

Published Jan 4, 2022• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Collision phenomena are important in determining the structures and interactions of atoms and molecules. A broad concern is how to investigate collisions $i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n$ $s\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}u$ under wide-ranging experimental conditions. To this end, the authors develop a spin-noise spectroscopic approach to measure key collision parameters in alkali atoms and inert atoms or molecules. The technique offers broad bandwidth (tens of GHz) and fine resolution (1 ppm), outperforming existing spin-noise methods. This approach is expected to aid research on a great range of collision phenomena under ambient conditions, such as nonperturbative study of cold atom-molecule collisions.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.17.l011001

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Collision phenomena are important in determining the structures and interactions of atoms and molecules. A broad concern is how to investigate collisions i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}n s\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}t\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}u under wide-ranging experimental conditions. To this end, the authors develop a spin-noise spectroscopic approach to measure key collision parameters in alkali atoms and inert atoms or molecules. The technique offers broad bandwidth (tens of GHz) and fine resolution (1 ppm), outperforming existing spin-noise methods. This approach is expected to aid research on a great range of collision phenomena under ambient conditions, such as nonperturbative study of cold atom-molecule collisions.
Collision phenomena are ubiquitous and of importance in determining the microscopic structures and intermolecular interactions of atoms and molecules. The existing approaches are mostly based on atomic or molecular scatterings, which are hindered by the inconvenience of using ultra-high vacuum and low temperature systems. Here we demonstrate a new spin-noise spectroscopic approach by measuring optical polarization rotation noise of the probe light, which operates with simple apparatus and ambient conditions. Our approach features tens of gigahertz bandwidth and one part-per-million resolution, outperforming existing spin-noise techniques. Enabled by the new technique, we observe the collision-induced spin noise of alkali atoms, and precisely determine key collision parameters, such as collision diameter, well depth, and dominant interaction type. Our work provides a new tool to study a broad range of collision phenomena under ambient conditions.
Collision physics plays a key role in understanding the properties of ultracold gases. First, collisions ensure thermalization in trapped atomic samples, which is essential for the success of evaporative cooling. Second, interactions between atoms determine the equilibrium shape and the dynamics of the condensate once it is formed. Finally collisions limit the achievable spatial densities via inelastic processes, which ultimately determine whether a given atomic species may lead to Bose-Einstein condensation. The purpose of the following lectures is to give a basic introduction to collision physics with a special emphasis on the low temperature aspect of these interactions. We will consider here only binary interactions between atoms since one of the remarkable prop-erties of the physics of ultra-cold dilute gases is that all the macroscopic properties of the system can be directly deduced from the two-body interaction potential. In particular the essential concept of scattering length will be introduced and developped for some simple potentials, using as practical examples experimental results obtained on atomic cesium and rubidium. The present lectures are complementary to the ones given by D. Heinzen where a detailed comparison between the collisional properties of the various alkali atoms will be found, together with explanations of the spectroscopic approaches used in the precise determination of interatomic potentials. 1. – Scattering theory: a brief reminder 1.1. Collision between two particles. – We consider here an elementary collision process between two particles 1 and 2 with the same mass M, interacting through the potential
In the past two decades, the revolutionary technologies of creating cold and ultracold molecules have provided cutting-edge experiments for studying the fundamental phenomena of collision physics. To a large degree, the recent explosion of interest in the molecular collisions has been sparked by dramatic progress of experimental capabilities and theoretical methods, which permit molecular collisions to be explored deep in the quantum mechanical limit. Tremendous experimental advances in the field have already been achieved, and the authors, from an experimental perspective, provide a review of these studies for exploring the nature of molecular collisions occurring at temperatures ranging from the Kelvin to the nanoKelvin regime, as well as for applications of producing ultracold molecules.
Spectroscopy of atomic spin noise allows the determination of many sample properties such as energy-level structures and transverse-spin relaxation rates without the need to drive the system away from equilibrium with applied fields. Analysis of noise measurements can also reveal the processes that limit the sensitivity of a measured signal. Standard methods for spectroscopic noise measurements in atomic vapors rely on far-off-resonant optical probing. We present a method for investigating spin noise with a probe beam frequency relatively close to resonance and show how the back action of the probe on the atomic state can be subtracted from the recorded noise spectra. We verify this method experimentally by showing noise data that scale with the square root of the number of atoms, after the probe back action has been properly subtracted.
Abstract We explore the properties of three-atom complexes of alkali-metal diatomic molecules with alkali-metal atoms, which may be formed in ultracold collisions. We estimate the densities of vibrational states at the energy of atom–diatom collisions, and find values ranging from 2.2 to 350 K−1. However, this density does not account for electronic near-degeneracy or electron and nuclear spins. We consider the fine and hyperfine structure expected for such complexes. The Fermi contact interaction between electron and nuclear spins can cause spin exchange between atomic and molecular spins. It can drive inelastic collisions, with resonances of three distinct types, each with a characteristic width and peak height in the inelastic rate coefficient. Some of these resonances are broad enough to overlap and produce a background loss rate that is approximately proportional to the number of outgoing inelastic channels. Spin exchange can increase the density of states from which laser-induced loss may occur.