Inter-species spin-noise correlations in hot atomic vapors

TL;DR

This paper investigates spin noise correlations between two alkali-metal species in a vapor, revealing strong inter-species correlations and developing a theoretical model to understand these quantum effects for potential quantum sensing enhancements.

Contribution

It provides the first combined experimental and theoretical analysis of inter-species spin noise correlations in a dual-species vapor, highlighting new quantum correlation phenomena.

Findings

Strong inter-species spin correlations exceeding 60% at low magnetic fields.

Theoretical model accurately predicts observed spin noise correlations.

Insights into spin-dynamic effects involving intra- and inter-species interactions.

Abstract

We report an experimental and theoretical study of spin noise correlations in a $^{87}$Rb-$^{133}$Cs unpolarized alkali-metal vapor dominated by spin-exchange collisions. We observe strong unequal-time inter-species correlations and account for these with a first-principles theoretical model. Since the two atomic species have different spin precession frequencies, the dual-species vapor enables the use of an additional experimental handle, the applied magnetic field, for untangling various sub-types of spin correlations. In particular, the measured cross-correlation and auto-correlation spectra shed light on a number of spin-dynamic effects involving intra-atom, inter-atom, intra-species and inter-species correlations. Cross-correlation coefficients exceeding $60\%$ have been observed at low-magnetic fields, where the two spin species couple strongly via spin-exchange collisions. The understanding of such spontaneously generated correlations can motivate the design of quantum-enhanced measurements with single or multi-species spin-polarized alkali-metal vapors used in quantum sensing applications.