Oriented Atoms in a Variable Magnetic Field

Ettore Majorana, M. Inguscio

Felix Bloch, Isidor Isaac Rabi

Peter Hannaford

This article reviews the early investigations of Series on the resonance absorption and fluorescence of light by samples of oriented atoms dagger subjected to static and oscillatory magnetic fields. These investigations include experiments on optical-radiofrequency double resonance, light beats in double resonance, circulation of coherence in optical pumping, and time-biasing in level-crossing spectroscopy. It then describes some selected laser spectroscopy experiments involving the interaction of optically oriented atoms with static magnetic fields that were stimulated by the earlier work of Series, including experiments on hyperfine structure quantum beats, cascade quantum beats, ground-state quantum beats in transmission, and optogalvanic detection of atomic coherences. Finally, it describes some current work which uses static magnetic fields to manipulate the external variables (momentum and position) of laser-cooled oriented atoms, with applications in the rapidly developing field of atom optics and atom interferometry.

Jamie Ryan Gardner

Timothy H. Boyer

An external magnetic field is applied to the classical hydrogen atom treated in classical electromagnetic theory including classical electromagnetic zero-point radiation. In an earlier article, it was shown that the average value of each of the electron's action variables appears as a discrete value, corresponding to a representation of the rotation group, because of resonance between the periodic orbit of the electron and the random classical zero-point radiation. Here it is shown that, in the presence of a magnetic field and because of resonance, the classical orbital motion of the electron is in resonance with random classical zero-point radiation only for orientations of the orbit which take integer values for the angle made with the direction of the magnetic field, but excluding the m=0 orientation where the magnetic field is parallel to the orbital plane of the electron. Classical electromagnetic explanations are given for the Stern-Gerlach result, and for the Zeeman effect.

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.