Absolute and ratio measurements of the polarizability of Na, K, and Rb with an atom interferometer

TL;DR

This paper reports precise measurements of the electric dipole polarizability of sodium, potassium, and rubidium atoms using an atom interferometer, providing accurate ratios and improved values by combining with previous data.

Contribution

The study introduces a unified measurement approach for atomic polarizabilities, achieving high-precision ratios and refining individual values by integrating prior measurements.

Findings

Measured polarizabilities: Na, K, Rb with high precision.

Determined polarizability ratios with 0.3% accuracy.

Refined individual polarizability values by combining with previous data.

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 alpha_Na=24.11(2)_stat(18)_sys x 10^-24 cm^3, alpha_K=43.06(14)(33), and alpha_Rb=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 alpha_Rb/alpha_Na=1.959(5), alpha_K/alpha_Na=1.786(6), and alpha_Rb/alpha_K=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 alpha_K=43.06(21) and alpha_Rb=47.24(21).