Two-Orders-of-Magnitude Improvement in the Total Spin Angular Momentum of 131Xe Nuclei Using Spin Exchange Optical Pumping

2021/05/07 by Michael J. Molway, Molway, Michael J., Liana Bales-Shaffer +33
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic Physics (physics.atom-ph) #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex) #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.03076

openalex publication_date 2021/05/07 · openalex created_date 2021/05/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

We report on hyperpolarization of quadrupolar (I=3/2) 131Xe via spin-exchange optical pumping. Observations of the 131Xe polarization dynamics show that the effective alkali-metal/131Xe spin-exchange cross-sections are large enough to compete with 131Xe spin relaxation. 131Xe polarization up to 7.6 p/m 1.5 percent was achieved in ca. 8.5EE20 spins--a ca. 100-fold improvement in the total spin angular momentum--enabling applications including measurement of spin-dependent neutron-131Xe s-wave scattering and sensitive searches for time-reversal violation in neutron-131Xe interactions beyond the Standard Model.

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