Pressure Dependent Wall Relaxation in Polarized $^3$He Gaseous Cells

Abstract

Pressure dependence of longitudinal relaxation time (T$_1$) due to the cell wall was observed previously at both room temperature and low temperature in valved Rb-coated refillable $^3$He gaseous cells in \cite{Zheng2}. The diffusion of $^3$He from measurement cell through a capillary tube to the valve and the subsequent depolarization on the surface of the valve was proposed to possibly explain such a pressure dependence at room temperature \cite{Saam}. In this paper, we investigate this diffusion effect through measurements of T$_1$ with newly designed Rb-coated Pyrex glass cells at 295 K as well as finite element analysis (FEA) studies. Both the experimental results and FEA studies show that the diffusion effect is insufficient to explain the observed linear pressure-dependent behavior of T$_1$.