Direct measurement of excited-state dipole matrix elements using electromagnetically induced transparency in the hyperfine Paschen-Back regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel method to directly measure excited-state dipole matrix elements in rubidium atoms using electromagnetically induced transparency in a high magnetic field regime, simplifying complex atom-light interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a new experimental approach in the hyperfine Paschen-Back regime for direct measurement of dipole matrix elements, validated by theoretical agreement.

Findings

Measured the $raket{5P_{3/2}|er|5D_{5/2}}$ matrix element as 2.290 ea0

Achieved accurate modeling of EIT spectra with a three-level system

Confirmed results align with theoretical calculations by Safronova et al.

Abstract

Applying large magnetic fields to gain access to the hyperfine Paschen-Back regime can isolate three-level systems in a hot alkali metal vapors, thereby simplifying usually complex atom-light interactions. We use this method to make the first direct measurement of the $\vert\langle 5P\vert\vert er\vert\vert 5D\rangle\vert$ matrix element in $^{87}$Rb. An analytic model with only three levels accurately models the experimental electromagnetically induced transparency spectra and extracted Rabi frequencies are used to determine the dipole matrix element. We measure $\vert\langle 5P_{3/2}\vert\vert er\vert\vert 5D_{5/2}\rangle\vert = (2.290\pm0.002_{\rm stat}\pm0.04_{\rm syst})~ea_{0}$ which is in excellent agreement with the theoretical calculations of Safronova, Williams, and Clark [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{69}, 022509 (2004)].