Sodium-Electron Spin-Exchange Collisions

Abstract

A spin-exchange optical pumping experiment to study collisions between sodium atoms and free electrons is reported. In this experiment, electrons in a weak magnetic field were polarized by spin-exchange collisions with optically pumped sodium atoms. The sodium-electron collisions were the principal source of the electron resonance linewidth, and they also produced a shift in the electron resonance frequency. The magnitudes of the linewidth and the frequency shift depend upon the scattering amplitude for sodium-electron collisions, the sodium polarization, and the sodium atom density. The ratio of the frequency shift to the linewidth was 0.03. The sodium polarization was approximately 30%. The electron resonance frequency was lower when the sodium polarization was positive. The measurements of the electron linewidth and the frequency shift agree with theoretical values of the linewidth and frequency shift obtained from the sodium-electron scattering phase shifts which have been recently calculated by Garrett.