We report on hyperpolarization of quadrupolar (I=3/2) 131Xe via spin-exchange optical pumping. Observations of the 131Xe polarization dynamics show that the effective alkali-metal/131Xe spin-exchange cross-sections are large enough to compete with 131Xe spin relaxation. 131Xe polarization up to 7.6 p/m 1.5 percent was achieved in ca. 8.5EE20 spins--a ca. 100-fold improvement in the total spin angular momentum--enabling applications including measurement of spin-dependent neutron-131Xe s-wave scattering and sensitive searches for time-reversal violation in neutron-131Xe interactions beyond the Standard Model.
@article{arxiv.2105.03076,
title = {Two-Orders-of-Magnitude Improvement in the Total Spin Angular Momentum of 131Xe Nuclei Using Spin Exchange Optical Pumping},
author = {Michael J. Molway and Liana Bales-Shaffer and Kaili Ranta and Dustin Basler and Megan Murphy and Bryce E. Kidd and Abdulbasit Tobi Gafar and Justin Porter and Kierstyn Albin and Boyd M. Goodson and Eduard Y. Chekmenev and Matthew S. Rosen and W. Michael Snow and James Ball and Eleanor Sparling and Mia Prince and Daniel Cocking and Michael J. Barlow},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.03076},
year = {2021}
}
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6 page main document plus 23 page Supplemental Information (SI) document