Affiliation:
1. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
Abstract
We present ab initio reduced rate equation models to study the interplay of Zeeman and hyperfine pumping, which determines the Doppler-broadened absorption spectra of an arbitrarily polarized probe laser, in thermal atomic vapor. Our simple models (with maximum seven levels) accurately predict the dependence of probe absorption on its polarization for the 87Rb D2 line (residual error <2%) without any fitting parameters, while being ∼100× less computational resource intensive as compared to numerically complex full multi-level models that treat all (up to 23) the magnetic (m
F
) sub-levels present in the system individually. We demonstrate that either Zeeman or hyperfine pumping dominates depending on whether the atomic transitions being probed are primarily closed or open.
Funder
Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India
Subject
Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics,Statistical and Nonlinear Physics