Spontaneous creation and persistence of ground-state coherence in a resonantly driven intra-cavity atomic ensemble

The spontaneous creation and persistence of ground-state coherence in an ensemble of intracavity Rb atoms has been observed as a quantum beat. Our system realizes a quantum eraser, where the detection of a first photon prepares a superposition of ground-state Zeeman sublevels, while detection of a second erases the stored information. Beats appear in the time-delayed photon-photon coincidence rate (intensity correlation function). We study the beats theoretically and experimentally as a function of system parameters, and find them remarkably robust against perturbations such as spontaneous emission. Although beats arise most simply through single-atom-mediated quantum interference, scattering pathways involving pairs of atoms interfere also in our intracavity experiment. We present a detailed model which identifies all sources of interference and accounts for experimental realities such as imperfect pre-pumping of the atomic beam, cavity birefringence, and the transit of atoms across the cavity mode.

Comparison of hyperfine anomalies in the 5S_{1/2} and 6S_{1/2} levels of ^{85}Rb and ^{87}Rb

We observe a hyperfine anomaly in the measurement of the hyperfine splitting of the 6S_{1/2} excited level in rubidium. We perform two step spectroscopy using the 5S_{1/2}->5P_{1/2}->6S_{1/2} excitation sequence. We measure the splitting of the 6S1/2 level and obtain for the magnetic dipole constants of ^{85}Rb and ^{87}Rb A = 239.18(4) MHz and A=807.66(8) MHz, respectively. The hyperfine anomaly difference of_{87}delta_{85}=-0.0036(2) comes from the Bohr Weisskopf effect: a correction to the point interaction between the finite nuclear magnetization and the electrons, and agrees with that obtained in the 5S_{1/2} ground state.