Effect of an additional magnetic field on Hanle-type absorption resonances

Abstract

We computationally compare Hanle-type resonances for a transition of the line for magnetic field scans parallel (longitudinal scan) and perpendicular (transverse scan) to the direction of propagation of the optical field in the presence of an additional transverse magnetic field (TMF). For a linearly polarized light, the coherent population trapping (CPT) resonances split at line centre and are identical for both longitudinal and transverse scans. When the probe beam ellipticity is varied, the effect of the TMF is found to be opposite for longitudinal and transverse scans. For a longitudinal scan, the splitting observed in the CPT resonance evolves into an enhanced absorption resonance with an increase in ellipticity. For a transverse scan, the splitting vanishes at higher ellipticities. This can be understood in terms of population redistribution in the ground state sublevels and near-neighbor ground state coherences created by the TMF. We also show that the enhanced absorption signal that splits the CPT resonance strongly depends on transit time, and the CPT resonance strength depends on the excited state dephasing rate.