Berlin 2001 – scientific programme
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A: Atomphysik
A 17: Posters Friday (Spectroscopy)
A 17.3: Poster
Friday, April 6, 2001, 12:30–15:00, AT3
Magnetic Field Tomography — •Philippe Courteille1, Sergio Muniz1, Kilvia Magalhaes1, Robin Kaiser2, Luiz Marcassa1, and Vanderlei Bagnato1 — 1Instituto de Fisica de Sao Carlos, Universidade de Sao Paulo, CP 369, CEP 13560-970, Sao Carlos/SP, Brazil — 2Insitut Non-Lineaire de Nice, 1361, Route des Luciolles, F-06560 Valbonne
Neutral atoms may be trapped via the interaction of their magnetic dipole moment with magnetic field gradients. One of the possible schemes is the cloverleaf trap. It is often desirable to have at hand a fast and precise technique for measuring the magnetic field distribution. We introduce a novel diagnostic tool for instantaneous imaging the equipotential lines of a magnetic field within a region of space (the vacuum recipient) that is not accessible to massive probes. Our technique is based on spatially resolved observation of the fluorescence emitted by a hot beam of sodium atoms crossing a thin slice of resonant laser light within the magnetic field region to be investigated. The inhomogeneous magnetic field spatially modulates the resonance condition between the Zeeman-shifted hyperfine sublevels and the laser light and therefore the amount of scattered photons. We demonstrate this technique by mapping the field of our cloverleaf trap in three dimensions under various conditions. Furthermore, we observe simultaneously several magnetic hyperfine sublevels in the Paschen-Back regime of the hyperfine structure. The polarization of the fluorescence light is spatially modulated by the magnetic field (Hanle effect).