In-Situ Evaluation of Low-Frequency Magnetic Field Fluctuation in an Atomic Comagnetometer

This paper investigates a novel method for the in-situ evaluation of the low-frequency magnetic field fluctuation in an atomic comagnetometer (ACM). An in-situ magnetic field measurement model is first established for the hybrid atomic spin ensembles in the ACM based on the simplified Bloch equations. Then, the ACM is transformed into an in-situ magnetometer by employing a large longitudinal magnetic field and a transversal alternating current (AC) magnetic field, respectively. This in-situ magnetometer is sensitive to the magnetic field fluctuation along the detection laser direction according to the established measurement model and can realize the magnetic field measurement sensitivity of 88fT/Hz
^1/2
at 0.1Hz. Finally, the low-frequency magnetic field fluctuation is evaluated with this in-situ magnetometer, whose influence on the stability of the ACM is also analyzed by the Allan variance method. The experimental results show that the contribution of the magnetic field fluctuation along the detection laser direction to the stability of the ACM is about 0.0068 deg/h, which means that the magnetic field error still has a non-negligible effect on the stability of the system. This new in-situ magnetic field measurement method has the advantages of simple operation and no need to replace the atomic vapor cell, which provides an effective means of the magnetic field error evaluation for the ACM.