Investigation of Optical Pumping in Cesium Atoms with a Radio-Frequency Field, Using Liouville Equation

Abstract

Optical pumping is a technique for engineering atomic-sublevel population of desired atoms. We investigate the population evolution of Cesium atoms by employing Liouville equation. For this purpose, we apply a circularly polarized light at a frequency suitable for electronic transition from ground states to excited states and calculate the relaxation rate, repopulation, and population evolution of the Cesium Zeeman sublevels. For engineering the sublevel population after optical pumping, we employ a radiofrequency (RF) field and consider the effect of RF field in Liouville equation. With this approach, we are able to prepare desired distribution of the population in the atomic sublevels with high efficiency, which can be employed in different optical experiments.