Two-Orders-of-Magnitude Improvement in the Total Spin Angular Momentum of 131Xe Nuclei Using Spin Exchange Optical Pumping

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a hundredfold increase in the total spin angular momentum of 131Xe nuclei through spin exchange optical pumping, enabling advanced applications in fundamental physics tests.

Contribution

It reports a significant enhancement in 131Xe hyperpolarization using optimized spin exchange optical pumping techniques, surpassing previous methods.

Findings

Achieved 7.6% polarization of 131Xe nuclei.

Realized a 100-fold increase in total spin angular momentum.

Enabled new applications in neutron scattering and fundamental symmetry tests.

Abstract

We report on hyperpolarization of quadrupolar (I=3/2) 131Xe via spin-exchange optical pumping. Observations of the 131Xe polarization dynamics show that the effective alkali-metal/131Xe spin-exchange cross-sections are large enough to compete with 131Xe spin relaxation. 131Xe polarization up to 7.6 p/m 1.5 percent was achieved in ca. 8.5EE20 spins--a ca. 100-fold improvement in the total spin angular momentum--enabling applications including measurement of spin-dependent neutron-131Xe s-wave scattering and sensitive searches for time-reversal violation in neutron-131Xe interactions beyond the Standard Model.