Temperature dependent relaxation lifetime T1, T2 measurements of the spin-polarized 87Rb atoms

Abstract

Temperature dependent relaxation time of 87Rb atoms, namely the longitudinal relaxation lifetime T1 and the transverse relaxation lifetime T2 are studied respectively by using the Franzen method and by measuring the optical rotation of a weak, linearly polarized probe light. Although the Franzen measurement in this work is taken with a weak probe light, the absorption of probe light can still destroy the spin polarization of 87Rb atoms to a certain degree. However, a longer relaxation time of T2 can be well achieved by measuring the optical rotation of linearly polarized light under 6 GHz detuning along the direction of red light. Results show that both T1 and T2 obey an exponential decay with temperature, and the temperature dependent decaying rate of relaxation is respectively 27.8 for T1 and 25.0 for T2, indicating that temperature playing a similar role in the reaction to T1 and T2.