Frequency characteristics of nuclear spin oscillator with an artificial feedback toward search for 129Xe atomic electric dipole moment

Abstract

A 129Xe nuclear spin oscillator with an artificial feedback was constructed, and detailed studies were conducted on its performance, focusing on the frequency stability. As a result, the major sources of drift of the precession frequency in the present spin oscillator setup were identified to be drifts of a solenoid current and an environmental magnetic field. By introducing stabilization systems for the current and the environmental field, which yielded improvements by one order of magnitude on the solenoid current and by a factor of three on the environmental field, a frequency precision of 7.9 nHz was obtained for a one-shot measurement of 3 × 104 s duration. We found, however, that the Allan deviation leveled off at around 30 μHz, indicating a strong need for the precision monitor of the experimental conditions represented by magnetometry. The frequency stability of the spin oscillator is discussed in relation to an experimental search for an electric dipole moment of the 129Xe atom.