Absolute and ratio measurements of the polarizability of Na, K, and Rb with an atom interferometer
Abstract
We measured the ground state electric dipole polarizability of sodium, potassium, and rubidium using a Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer with an electric field gradient. We find alphaNa=24.11(2)stat(18)sys x 10-24 cm3, alphaK=43.06(14)(33), and alphaRb=47.24(12)(42). Since these measurements were all performed in the same apparatus and subject to the same systematic errors we can present polarizability ratios with 0.3% precision. We find alphaRb/alphaNa=1.959(5), alphaK/alphaNa=1.786(6), and alphaRb/alphaK=1.097(5). We combine our ratio measurements with the higher precision measurement of sodium polarizability by Ekstrom et al. [Phys. Rev. A 51, 3883 (1995)] to find alphaK=43.06(21) and alphaRb=47.24(21).
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