Polarization-driven spin precession of mesospheric sodium atoms
Atomic Physics
2018-09-12 v1
Abstract
We report experimental results on the first on-sky observation of atomic spin precession of mesospheric sodium driven by polarization modulation of a continuous-wave laser. The magnetic resonance was remotely detected from the ground by observing the enhancement of induced fluorescence when the driving frequency approached the precession frequency of sodium in the mesosphere, between 85 km and 100 km altitude. The experiment was performed at La Palma, and the uncertainty in the measured Larmor frequency (260 kHz) corresponded to an error in the geomagnetic field of 0.4 mG. The results are consistent with geomagnetic field models and with the theory of light-atom interaction in the mesosphere.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1809.03923,
title = {Polarization-driven spin precession of mesospheric sodium atoms},
author = {Felipe Pedreros and Domenico Bonaccini Calia and Dmitry Budker and Mauro Centrone and Joschua Hellemeier and Paul Hickson and Ronald Holzlöhner and Simon Rochester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.03923},
year = {2018}
}