Frequency shifts of the magnetic resonance of Rb and K atoms in the K-Rb tandem magnetometer

Abstract

Collisions of alkali atoms in the ground state are accompanied by the exchange of electron polarization between the colliding atoms, which lead to the polarization transfer between particles. As a result of this process, the electronic orientation is transferred from the spin oriented atoms to unpolarized atoms, along with the polarization transfer, the magnetic resonance frequency shifts of polarized atoms occur too. In this work the magnetic resonance frequency shifts of arising from spin exchange collisions in a mixture of alkali potassium and rubidium atoms at the optical orientation of atoms are calculated. The situation when optical pumping by resonant polarized radiation is carried out only for atoms of the one kind is considered. The spin exchange process between alkali atoms was described in the formalism of the complex cross section for spin exchange process. The real and imaginary parts of the complex cross section were calculated using the interaction potentials of alkali atom dimers. The calculation of the frequency shifts is carried out on the basis of data on the interaction potentials for the following pairs of alkali atoms K-K, K-Rb and Rb-Rb. Maxwell averaging of the cross sections over the velocities was done and the temperature dependences of the magnetic resonance frequency shifts for K and Rb atoms were plotted.