Measurement of a¹²⁹Xe transverse relaxation rate without the influence of Rb polarization-induced magnetic gradient

Abstract

We demonstrate the measurement of the transverse spin relaxation rate of Xe without the influence of the Rb polarization-induced magnetic field gradient. The optical pumping beam and probe beam turn on and off repeatedly during the measurement to reduce the relaxation originating from the Rb polarization-induced magnetic field gradient. During the absence of the optical pumping beam, the nuclear spin of the noble gas atom does not experience the alkali-polarization-induced magnetic field gradient so that the transverse spin relaxation rate ( <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>/</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> ) decreases. When the duty cycle reaches zero, the measured transverse relaxation time <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> approaches the longitudinal spin relaxation time <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi>T</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:math> . Our method helps in roughly estimating the longitudinal spin relaxation time with a single measurement of the free induction decay.