Abstract
We show that weak residual magnetic fields can significantly affect the preparation and measurement of molecular rotational angular momentum alignment in a typical gas-phase stereodynamics apparatus. Specifically, polarization spectroscopy, a third-order nonlinear spectroscopic technique, is used to prepare and probe the collisional and noncollisional losses of rotational angular momentum alignment of OH X (2)Pi. Residual magnetic fields of the order of the geomagnetic field are shown to have a significant effect on the prepared polarization on a submicrosecond timescale. This can be expected to be a significant effect for many gas-phase free radicals, such as those of interest in combustion, atmospheric chemistry, and the burgeoning field of cold molecules. We demonstrate a simple experimental remedy for this problem.
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