Speaker
Description
The nuclear spin of Helium-3 atoms in a room-temperature gas is a very well isolated
quantum system featuring record-long coherence times of up to several days. It is used
in a variety of applications ranging from magnetometry and gyroscopes to magnetic
resonance imaging and precision tests of fundamental physics. While the exceptional
isolation of Helium-3 nuclear spins ensures long coherence times, it renders
measurement and control difficult. We report first experiments towards optical quantum
control of Helium-3 nuclear spins. We make use of metastability-exchange collisions
to mediate an effective interaction between the nuclear spins and light, which allows
us to read out the coherent nuclear spin dynamics with an optical Faraday
measurement [1]. Reaching quantum-noise limited detection and increasing the
coupling strength will allow us to prepare non-classical nuclear spin states via QND
measurements, as we have investigated in a detailed theoretical study [1,2].
References
[1] A. Serafin, M. Fadel, P. Treutlein, and A. Sinatra, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 013601
(2021).
[2] A. Serafin, Y. Castin, M. Fadel, P. Treutlein, and A. Sinatra, Comptes Rendus
Physique 22, 1 (2021).
