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Transverse Measurements Of Polarization In Optically Pumped Rb Vapor Cells, J. M. Dreiling, E. B. Norrgard, D. Tupa, Timothy J. Gay

Timothy J. Gay Publications

We have developed a simple heuristic method for determining the polarization of an optically pumped alkalimetal vapor. A linearly polarized probe beam traverses a vapor cell perpendicular to the pump-beam propagation direction, and the transmitted beam intensity is monitored for orthogonal linear polarizations. As the probe beam is scanned in frequency across the D₁ transition, its linear-polarization-dependent transmission can be used as a measure of the atomic orientation of the vapor. We analyze these transmission differences and their dependence on the alkali-metal number density in the vapor.