Optical pumping in rubidium-87 — A mixture of σ + and σ − circularly polarized light on the (F g = 1 ↔ F e = 0) transition in the D2-line

Abstract

We present results of a method for calculating optical pumping rates in 87 Rb, as described in [1]. We use a mixture of circularly polarised light (σ + and σ −) on the (F g = 1 ↔ F e = 0) transition to populate an angular momentum state in the F g = 1 hyperfine structure level of the ground state, with magnetic quantum number M g = 0 — that is a clock state. The method is shown to function well for the studied system. Explicit analytical equations for all level populations as functions of time, detuning, intensity, relative intensities of the polarization, and starting parameters are derived.