Measurement of a Long Electronic Spin Relaxation Time of Cesium Atoms in Superfluid Helium

T. Furukawa, Y. Matsuo, A. Hatakeyama, Y. Fukuyama, T. Kobayashi, H. Izumi, and T. Shimoda

Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 095301 – Published 8 March 2006

Abstract

The longitudinal electronic spin relaxation time of Cs atoms optically polarized in superfluid helium (He II, 1.5 K) has been measured with special care to cope with a serious decrease in the number of Cs atoms in the observation region. This decrease, mainly caused by helium convection in introducing the atoms into He II by laser sputtering, was significantly reduced using a new atom implantation method. Combined with a careful correction for the number of atoms, we have determined the relaxation time to be 2.24(19) s or longer, roughly twice as long as that in solid He.

Received 15 April 2005

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.095301

Authors & Affiliations

T. Furukawa^1,*, Y. Matsuo², A. Hatakeyama³, Y. Fukuyama², T. Kobayashi², H. Izumi¹, and T. Shimoda¹

¹Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, Osaka 560-0043, Japan
²RIKEN, 2-1, Hirosawa, Wako-shi, Saitama 351-0198, Japan
³Institute of Physics, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Komaba, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan

^*Electronic address: take@valk.phys.sci.osaka-u.ac.jp

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Vol. 96, Iss. 9 — 10 March 2006

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