Larmor-resonant Sodium Excitation

for Laser Guide Stars

Ron Holzlöhner
S. Rochester 1
D. Budker 2,1
D. Bonaccini Calia
ESO LGS Group
1 Rochester Scientific LLC,
2 Dept. of Physics, UC

Berkeley

AO4ELT3
Florence, 28 May 2013
 Are E-ELT LGS lasers powerful enough?

E-ELT laser baseline: 20W cw with 12% repumping  5 Mph/s/m2 at

Nasmyth (at zenith in median sodium; 12 Mph/s/m2 on ground)

There may be situations when flux is not sufficient for some instruments
(low sodium, large zenith angle, non-photometric night, full moon, etc.)

No unique definition of LGS availability; details quite complicated

E-ELT Project has expressed interest in exploring paths to raise the

return flux
Two avenues:
1. Raise cw power  Laser development (e.g., Raman fiber amplifiers)
2. Raise coupling efficiency sce  Explore new laser formats

Will focus on option 2

Slide 2
 Sim. cw return flux on ground [106 ph/s/m2]

Sky Maps Paranal

B
ζ = 60°

 Becoming more independent of

field angle would be particularly
beneficial in Paranal:
 Flux varies strongly with angle to
B-field
 B-field inclination is only 21° 
most of the time this angle is large 3.6!
 What factors limit the return flux?
 Three major impediments of sodium excitation:
1) Larmor precession (m: angular momentum z-component)
B
m

θ v
Laser + 50 kHz
spont.
emission
2) Recoil (radiation pressure)  time

excited (P3/2)
3) Transition saturation
(at 62 W/m2 in fully pumped sodium) ground (S1/2)
Slide 4
 Visualization of Atomic Polarization

Credit: D. Kimball, D. Budker et al., Physics 208a course at UC Berkeley

Draw 3D surface where distance from origin equals the probability
to be found in a stretched state (m = F) along this direction.

z z z
y y y

x x x

Unpolarized Oriented Aligned

Sphere centered “Pumpkin” pointing “Peanut” with axis
at origin, in z-direction → along z →
equal probability preferred direction. preferred axis.
in all directions.
 Precession in Magnetic Field

Credit: D. Kimball, D. Budker et al., Physics 208a course at UC Berkeley

� �
µ×B torque causes polarized atoms to precess:

Credit: E. Kibblewhite
 Efficiency per Atom with Repumping
Peak efficiency

500

ψ (ph/s/sr/atom)/(W/m 2)
Model narrow-line cw
400 θ=0
laser, circular polarization q = 0.12
ψ : Return flux per atom, 300
normalized by irradiance
200
[unit ph/s/sr/atom/(W/m2)] θ = π/2
100
θ: angle of laser to B-field circular
(design laser for θ = π/2) 0
-2 -1 0 1 2 3
Symbols: Monte Carlo 10 10 10 10 10 10
Irradiance (W/m2)
simulation, lines: Bloch
Blue curve peaks near 50
W/m2, close to Na 20W cw laser Transition
saturation at 60 W/m2: in mesosphere saturation
Race to beat Larmor 62 W/m2

Is there a way to harness the efficiency at peak of green curve?

Slide 7
 Larmor Resonant Pulsing

Pulse the laser resonantly with Larmor rotation: like stroboscope,

Larmor period: 3 – 6.2 μs (Field in Paranal: 0.2251G at 92km)
Used for optical magnetometry: Yields bright resonance in D2a of about
20% at 0.3…1.0 W/m2, narrow resonance of ca. 1.5% FWHM *)
Recent proposal by Hillman et al. to pulse at 9% duty cycle, 20W
average power, 47/0.09 = 522 W/m2 and a linewidth of 150 MHz 
47/15 ≈ 3 W/m2/vel.class  near optimum avg. power
Paranal simulation: sce = 374 ph/s/W/(atoms/m2), vs.
ca. sce ≈ 250 for cw (all at 90° and Paranal conditions)
θ=0
hence about 1.5 times more (!)
sce becomes almost independent of field angle
Increased irradiance also broadens the resonance θ = π/2
cular

-1 0 1
10 10 10 1

*) PNAS 10.1073/pnas.1013641108 (2011) (arXiv:0912.4310) Slide 8

 Some Simulation Details

B = 0.23 G, θ = 90°, q = 9%,

150 MHz linewidth
Return is fairly linear vs.
irradiance
Steady state reached after
ca. 50 periods = 300μs (S-
damping time)

Slide 9
 Simulated
Performance

Can achieve 14 Mph/s/m2 at 10W,

28 Mph/s/m2 at 20W (D2a+D2b)
Peak efficiency reached above 10W
Very strong atomic polarization
towards (F=m=2) of 60–70%

Ground States 582 W/m2 Excited States

F=m=1

Slide
10
 Larmor Detuning
A small rep rate detuning shows up first at low peak irradiance
Reduces pumping efficiency, induces polarization oscillations
Variation in Paranal: –0.22%/year, –0.39%/10km altitude

On resonance 1% detuned 2% detuned

Ip = 221 W/m2

Ip = 27 W/m2
 Best Laser Format?

Lasers with pulses of ~0.5 μs and peak power 200W hard to build
(150/2=75 MHz linewidth not large enough to sufficiently mitigate SBS)
Multiplex cw laser to avoid wasting beam power?
 Spatiotemporally: use one laser to sequentially produce multiple stars
 In frequency: Chirp laser continuously, e.g. from –55... +55 MHz (11 vel.c.)
 In frequency: Periodically address several discrete velocity classes
 Or modulate the polarization state? (probably less beneficial)

Can in principle profit from “snowplowing” by up-chirping, although

chirp rate of ~110 MHz/6.2μs = 17.7 MHz/μs is very high
Numerical optimization of modulation scheme; runs are time-
consuming (order 48–72 CPU h per irradiance step)
Issue: Avoid F=1 downpumping, in particular at 60 MHz offset

Slide
12
 Downpumping

3S1/2  3P3/2 transition

F = I + J : Total angular
momentum
I = 3/2 : Nuclear spin
J = L + S : Total electronic
angular momentum (sum
of orbital and spin parts)
40 MHz grid

D2b
Excitation from D2a
narrow-band laser
Graphic by Unger

D2a

Prefer (F = 2, m = ±2)  (F = 3, m = ±3) cycling transition

 Frequency Scanning Schemes

Scan across >= 9 discrete velocity classes

Blue-shift to achieve “snowplowing” via atomic recoil
Avoid downpumping  leave 40 MHz or >> 60 MHz gaps, but…
…without exceeding the sodium Doppler curve (1.05 GHz FWHM)

9 × 40 MHz 4 × 110 MHz

Slide
14
 Hyperfine State Populations

Population 

F=1
ground
states Plot hyperfine state evolution for a
F=2 selection of velocity classes
ground Visualize Larmor precession,
states
Time 

downpumping, excitation

excited
Larmor states
period
first
pulse

Slide
15
Hyperfine State Analysis: 9 × 40 MHz

60 MHz

Slide
16
 Conclusions
Larmor precession reduces the return flux efficiency by factor 2; forces
high irradiance to combat population mixing
Can mitigate population mixing by stroboscopic illumination resonant
with Larmor frequency (~160 kHz in Chile, ~330 kHz in continental
North America and Europe)
Realize with pulsed laser of ~20W average power and < 10% duty
cycle, 150 MHz linewidth: Raise efficiency by factor 1.5 !
…which is hard to build (> 200 W peak power, M2 < 1.1)
Alternative: Frequency modulation (chirping/frequency multiplexing
schemes)
Caveats: Avoid 60 MHz downpumping trap and target ~3–5 W/m2/v.c.
on time average, frequency sensitive, modulator not easy to build
Format optimization is work in progress

CW laser format is good, but leaves room for improvement

Slide
17
Additional Post-Conference Slides
October 15, 2013

Slide 18
 Long-term Return Flux Simulations

chirping schemes, starting from equilibrium

Collection of simulation results for various
 Simulations find an initial boost in return flux (ground state pumping)
 However: Long-term simulations (milliseconds) show a steadily declining flux, indicating a
further decay to a steady-state level comparable to or below that of a CW laser
 Likely reason: (Slow) velocity group mixing of out-of-phase hyperfine states among
different velocity classes diminish atomic polarization
 B-Field Map of the Globe

Source: British Geological Society

 Diurnal B-field Variations (I)
The geomagnetic field varies on all time scales. There is a diurnal component due to the “breathing” of the
ionosphere caused by solar radiation. At sea, tidal currents generate additional field variations. Solar storms can
induce strong disturbances.

Land

B-field (nT)
Ocean

Source: NOAA website noaa.gov

During solar quiet times, the total intensity of the magnetic field is perturbed by only a few tens of nanoteslas (nT),
which represents about 0.1% of the Earth's magnetic field strength. During solar storms, the field can vary by
hundreds of nT, i.e., exceed 1% variation over a few hours.

Credit: NOAA, British Geological Society

 Diurnal B-field Variations (II)
Besides field strength variations, the field vector veers diurnally. During solar quiet times,
the magnetic inclination varies by less than a tenth of a degree.

Recorded daily variation in declination over one day

at Hartland observatory (51°N, 355°E, top) and
effect of these variations on a compass needle,
exaggerated (bottom). Source: British Geological
Society

Power spectrum of geomagnetic field variations

(Constable and Constable, 2004)
 Schumann Resonances
The gap between the Earth’s surface and the ionosphere acts as a waveguide for ultra-low-frequency electromagnetic
disturbances such as those generated by lightning. The fundamental lies at 7.83 Hz and there are 4 strong harmonics.

Credit: Wikipedia; R. L. McPherron, Encyclopedia Britannica (2009)

 Post-Conference Results and Outlook
 In order to achieve good efficiency, the Larmor frequency must be
tracked to better than 1%
 Temporally, this is likely not a problem during solar-quiet times. How-
ever, B-field decline with altitude is a factor, albeit a predictable one
 Larmor-resonant chirping schemes appear attractive since they would
open a less disruptive upgrade path for CW lasers
 However, all our numerical simulations carried out so far indicate a low
efficiency of chirping schemes
 If this finding persists, the only way to efficiently realize Larmor-
resonant flux enhancement is by using amplitude modulation (pulses)
 Larmor-resonant pulsed lasers at 589nm with 10–20W average power
are difficult to engineer and may saturate the sodium atoms
 Excitation of Larmor-subharmonics possible in principle, e.g. such as
to track laser pulses in the mesosphere to mitigate spot elongation