Absolute absorption on the potassium D lines: theory and experiment

Hanley, Ryan K.; Gregory, Philip D.; Hughes, Ifan G.; Cornish, Simon L.

doi:10.1088/0953-4075/48/19/195004

Absolute absorption on the potassium D lines: theory and experiment

Hanley, Ryan K.; Gregory, Philip D.; Hughes, Ifan G.; Cornish, Simon L.

Authors

Ryan K. Hanley

Philip D. Gregory

Professor Ifan Hughes i.g.hughes@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Professor Simon Cornish s.l.cornish@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the absolute Doppler-broadened absorption of a probe beam scanned across the potassium D lines in a thermal vapour. Spectra using a weak probe were measured on the 4S $\to $ 4P transition and compared to the theoretical model of the electric susceptibility detailed by Zentile et al (2015 Comput. Phys. Commun. 189 162–74) in the code named ElecSus. Comparisons were also made on the 4S $\to $ 5P transition with an adapted version of ElecSus. This is the first experimental test of ElecSus on an atom with a ground state hyperfine splitting smaller than that of the Doppler width. An excellent agreement was found between ElecSus and experimental measurements at a variety of temperatures with rms errors $\sim {10}^{-3}$. We have also demonstrated the use of ElecSus as an atomic vapour thermometry tool, and present a possible new measurement technique of transition decay rates which we predict to have a precision of ~$3\;\mathrm{kHz}$.

Citation

Hanley, R. K., Gregory, P. D., Hughes, I. G., & Cornish, S. L. (2015). Absolute absorption on the potassium D lines: theory and experiment. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 48(19), Article 195004. https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-4075/48/19/195004

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jul 28, 2015
Online Publication Date	Aug 28, 2015
Publication Date	Oct 14, 2015
Deposit Date	Sep 14, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Aug 28, 2016
Journal	Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
Print ISSN	0953-4075
Electronic ISSN	1361-6455
Publisher	IOP Publishing
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	48
Issue	19
Article Number	195004
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-4075/48/19/195004
Keywords	Potassium vapour, ElecSus, D lines.

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Copyright Statement
This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article published in Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics. IOP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0953-4075/48/19/195004.