Light-induced Frequency Shift and Relaxation of Ground-State 3He via Metastability-Exchange Collisions

Abstract

Metastability-exchange collisions (MECs) lie at the heart of metastability-exchange optical pumping (MEOP) in 3He, enabling the transfer of polarization from the metastable state to the ground state, as well as the optical detection of nuclear magnetic resonance. Leveraging MECs, optically pumped 3He nuclear magnetometers have been developed since the earliest demonstrations of MEOP. However, it also induces an additional frequency shift and relaxation of the nuclear spin precession, thereby limiting the sensitivity of the magnetometer. In this work, we identify a new source of frequency shift and relaxation in the 3He nuclear spin, arising from the light shift. This effect arises from an MEC-mediated interaction between light and the nucleon spin. We develop a theoretical model to describe this light-induced effect and highlight its significance in low magnetic fields. This effect is experimentally demonstrated, and its dependence on various parameters -- including magnetic field strength, light intensity, and wavelength -- is investigated. Our result provides a better understanding of the frequency shift and relaxation of 3He spin precession under MEOP conditions. Moreover, our experiment reveals an MEC-mediated coupling between the 3He nuclear spin and light, which may indicate the feasibility of MEC-assisted optical manipulation of 3He nuclear spins at the quantum level, as proposed in several theoretical schemes.