No Arabic abstract
We consider the degree of conservation of nuclear spin polarization in the process of optical pumping under typical spin-exchange optical pumping conditions. Previous analyses have assumed that negligible nuclear spin precession occurs in the brief periods of time the alkali-metal atoms are in the excited state after absorbing photons and before undergoing quenching collisions with nitrogen molecules. We include excited-state hyperfine interactions, electronic spin relaxation in collisions with He and N_2, spontaneous emission, quenching collisions, and a simplified treatment of radiation trapping.
We have observed depolarization effects when high intensity cold neutron beams are incident on alkali-metal-spin-exchange polarized He-3 cells used as neutron spin filters. This was first observed as a reduction of the maximum attainable He-3 polarization and was attributed to a decrease of alkali-metal polarization, which led us to directly measure alkali-metal polarization and spin relaxation over a range of neutron fluxes at LANSCE and ILL. The data reveal a new alkali-metal spin-relaxation mechanism that approximately scales as the square root of the neutron capture-flux density incident on the cell. This is consistent with an effect proportional to the recombination-limited ion concentration, but is much larger than expected from earlier work.
We report high steady-state nuclear polarization of 1 torr $^3$He gas nuclei via metastability-exchange optical pumping at magnetic fields above 2 T. The introduction of highly polarized $^3$He gas into Brookhavens Electron Beam Ion Source would enable a new, polarized $^3$He ion source for use at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and a future Electron-Ion Collider facility. By adapting recent developments in high field metastability-exchange optical pumping for higher pressure gas, we have successfully polarized 1 torr $^3$He sealed cells in the EBIS solenoid. Through careful manipulation of the RF discharge parameters, polarizations above 80% were attained at 2, 3 and 4 T, with 89% being reached at 3 T with a 664 s relaxation time.
The Zeeman splittings and EPR frequencies of alkali-metal atoms are shifted in the presence of a polarized noble gas. For a spherical geometry, the shift is enhanced over what is expected classically by a dimensionless atomic parameter $kappa_0$ that is unique to each alkali-metal atom - noble-gas pair. We present a precise measurement of $kappa_0$ for the $^{39}$K-$^3$He system with a relative accuracy of better than 1%. A critical component of achieving sub-percent accuracy involved characterizing the shape of our samples using both MRI and CT medical-imaging techniques. The parameter $kappa_0$ plays an important role in establishing the absolute polarization of $^3$He in a variety of contexts, including polarized targets for electron scattering experiments and MRI of the gas space of the lungs. Our measurement more than doubles the accuracy possible when using $kappa_0$ for polarimetry purposes. Just as important, the work presented here represents the first {it direct} measurement of $kappa_0$ for the $^{39}$K-$^3$He system; previous values for $kappa_0$ in the $^{39}$K-$^3$He system relied on a chain of measurements that were benchmarked by previous measurements of $kappa_0$ in the Rb-$^3$He system.
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.
We measure the ratio $gamma$ of the momentum-transfer to the vibrational quenching cross section for the X ($^1Sigma^+$), $ u=1$, $mathrm{J=0}$ state of molecular thorium monoxide (ThO) in collisions with atomic $^3$He between 800 mK and 2.4 K. We observe indirect evidence for ThO--He van der Waals complex formation, which has been predicted by theory. We determine the 3-body recombination rate constant $Gamma_3$ at 2.4 K, and establish that the binding energy E$_b >$ 4 K.