Development of co-located 129 Xe and 131 Xe nuclear spin masers with external feedback scheme

Abstract

We report on the operation of co-located 129 Xe and 131 Xe nuclear spin masers with an external feedback scheme, and discuss the use of 131 Xe as a comagnetometer in measurements of the 129 Xe spin precession frequency. By applying a correction based on the observed change in the 131 Xe frequency, the frequency instability due to magnetic field and cell temperature drifts are eliminated by two orders of magnitude. The frequency precision of 6.2 µHz is obtained for a 10 4 s averaging time, suggesting the possibility of future improvement to ≈ 1 nHz by improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the observation.

Floquet maser

“…129 Xe spins are polarized by spin-exchange collisions with optically pumped 87 Rb atoms in a bias magnetic field B 0 (≈750 nT) along the polarized direction ( z axis) ( 36 ). Similar to a microwave cavity in conventional masers ( 1 , 2 , 4 ), the 129 Xe spins in our experiments are embedded in a feedback circuit ( 16 ) (see Fig. 1A ), which uses an atomic magnetometer ( 34 ) as a sensitive detector of 129 Xe spins and simultaneously supplies the real-time output audio-frequency signal of the magnetometer to the spins (see Materials and Methods).…”

“…We first measure the feedback-induced damping of 129 Xe spins, because damping plays an important role in realizing masers ( 9 , 16 , 38 ). For simplicity, the periodic driving field is turned off when we measure damping.…”

“…This opens up exciting possibilities for developing precise metrology in applied and fundamental physics, such as magnetometry ( 9 – 11 ), temperature sensors ( 12 ), tests of Lorentz and charge-parity-time reversal symmetry violation ( 13 ), and searches for topological dark matter ( 14 ). The masers have been demonstrated in a variety of systems, such as ammonia molecules ( 1 ), hydrogen atoms ( 6 ), noble gas ( 15 , 16 ), pentacene molecules ( 2 ), and silicon- and nitrogen-vacancy defect materials ( 3 , 4 , 10 ). However, the demonstrations of masers have remained unexplored in periodically driven (Floquet) systems ( 17 ), limiting the broad applications in sensing, spectroscopy, and fundamental physics.…”

Relativistic many-body theory of the electric dipole moment of Xe129 and its implications for probing new physics beyond the standard model

“…The first result for another diamagnetic atom, 225 Ra, for which the nuclear octupole deformation is expected to amplify its atomic EDM by about two -to three orders of mag-nitude [11], was reported 3 years ago [12] to be d Ra < 1.4×10 −23 e·cm (95% C.L.). As for the 129 Xe diamagnetic atom, three experiments on its EDM are currently under way [13][14][15]. Among the above three diamagnetic species, 225 Ra is radioactive with a half life of 14.9 d, while 199 Hg and 129 Xe are stable.…”

“…These new limits are likely to provide useful information on the character of new physics beyond the Standard Model [8]. In addition, as mentioned earlier, three experiments on 129 Xe EDM are in progress, and improved limits for this quantity are expected in the near future [13][14][15]. These experiments aim to improve the current limit, which is of the order of 10 −27 |e|cm, by as much as three orders of magnitude [15].…”