Quantitative optical spectroscopy of $^{87}$Rb vapour in the Voigt geometry in DC magnetic fields up to 0.4T

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates precise optical spectroscopy of rubidium vapor in high magnetic fields, achieving excellent agreement with models and enabling potential high-field vector magnetometry.

Contribution

It provides a detailed spectroscopic analysis in high magnetic fields using the ElecSus model, and explores its application for high-field vector magnetometry.

Findings

Achieved RMS spectral fit errors of ~0.3%.

Magnetic field and angle measurements agree within ~1% with Hall probe.

Demonstrated potential for atom-based high-field vector magnetometry.

Abstract

We present a detailed spectroscopic investigation of a thermal $^{87}$Rb atomic vapour in magnetic fields up to 0.4T in the Voigt geometry. We fit experimental spectra with our theoretical model \textit{ElecSus} and find excellent quantitative agreement, with RMS errors of $\sim 0.3$%. We extract the magnetic field strength and the angle between the polarisation of the light and the magnetic field from the atomic signal and find excellent agreement to within $\sim 1$% with a commercial Hall probe. Finally, we present an investigation of the relative sensitivity of this technique to variations in the field strength and angle with a view to enabling atom-based high-field vector magnetometry.