Vector light shift averaging in paraffin-coated alkali vapor cells

Area of Science:

• Atomic physics
• Quantum optics
• Magnetometry

Background:

• Light shifts introduce noise and systematic errors in optically pumped magnetometers.
• Minimizing these light shifts is crucial for enhancing magnetometer sensitivity and accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of long spin-coherence times on light shifts in optically pumped magnetometers.
• To demonstrate a method for mitigating light shift-induced systematics using paraffin-coated cells.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing paraffin-coated cells with long spin-coherence times.
• Analyzing the spatial averaging of vector light shifts over the cell volume.
• Investigating the independence of averaged light shifts from light intensity distribution.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated spatial averaging of the vector light shift across the entire paraffin-coated cell volume.
• Showed that the averaged vector light shift becomes largely independent of light intensity distribution.
• Confirmed the potential to extend this averaging mechanism to other spatially varying phenomena.

Conclusions:

• Long spin-coherence times in paraffin-coated cells effectively average out vector light shifts.
• This averaging mechanism offers a pathway to reduce systematics in optically pumped magnetometers.
• The principle is applicable to other anti-relaxation-coated cells with long coherence times and spatially varying effects.