Magnetometer suitable for Earth field measurement based on transient atomic response

摘要

We describe the development of a simple atomic magnetometer using $^{87}$Rbvapor suitable for Earth magnetic field monitoring. The magnetometer is basedon time-domain determination of the transient precession frequency of theatomic alignment around the measured field. A sensitivity of 1.5 nT/$\sqrt{Hz}$is demonstrated on the measurement of the Earth magnetic field in thelaboratory. We discuss the different parameters determining the magnetometerprecision and accuracy and predict a sensitivity of 30 pT/$\sqrt{Hz}$