Suppression of inhomogeneous broadening in rf spectroscopy of optically trapped atoms

Ariel Kaplan, Mikkel Fredslund Andersen, and Nir Davidson

Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel

(Received 28 April 2002; published 15 October 2002)

We present a method for reducing the inhomogeneous frequency broadening in the hyperfine splitting of the ground state of optically trapped atoms. This reduction is achieved by the addition of a weak light field, spatially mode matched with the trapping field and whose frequency is tuned in between the two hyperfine levels. We experimentally demonstrate the new scheme with ⁸⁵Rb atoms, and report a 50-fold narrowing of the rf spectrum. ©2002 The American Physical Society

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