Angular momentum alignment-to-orientation conversion in the ground state of Rb atoms at room temperature
We investigated experimentally and theoretically angular momentum alignment-to-orientation conversion created by the joint interaction of laser radiation and an external magnetic field with atomic rubidium at room temperature. In particular we were interested in alignment-to-orientation conversion in atomic ground state. Experimentally the laser frequency was fixed to the hyperfine transitions of $D_1$ line of rubidium. We used a theoretical model for signal simulations that takes into account all neighboring hyperfine levels, the mixing of magnetic sublevels in an external magnetic field, the coherence properties of the exciting laser radiation, and the Doppler effect. The experiments were carried out by exciting the atoms with linearly polarized laser radiation. Two oppositely circularly polarized laser induced fluorescence (LIF) components were detected and afterwards their difference was taken. The combined LIF signals originating from the hyperfine magnetic sublevel transitions of $^{85}$Rb and $^{87}$Rb rubidium isotopes were included. The alignment-to-orientation conversion can be undoubtedly identified in the difference signals for various laser frequencies as well as change in signal shapes can be observed when the laser power density is increased. We studied the formation and the underlying physical processes of the observed signal of the LIF components and their difference by performing the analysis of the influence of incoherent and coherent effects. We performed simulations of theoretical signals that showed the influence of ground-state coherent effects on the LIF difference signal.