Analysis of Dicke Narrowing in Wall-Coated and Buffer-Gas-Filled Atomic Storage Cells

摘要

Spectral lineshape narrowing of atomic vapor emission in a bufferless, wall-coated absorption cell--Dicke narrowing--has been analyzed using the same formalism developed to describe sub-Doppler linewidths in a buffered cell. Within this formalism, lineshapes are generated using Monte Carlo techniques. Linewidth reductions occur in the bufferless cell that are much greater than those in the buffered cell, because of the high probability that Doppler shifts before and after a particular wall collision will cancel each other. The formalism described allows more physical insight than the classic one-dimensional box model previously invoked to explain spectral narrowing in bufferless, wall-coated cells. Additionally, this formalism reveals a correlation between postcollision velocities and intercollision times in the buffered cell, resulting in modifications of the standard Dicke analysis of these cells. Keywords: atomic clocks; and motional narrowing. (Author)