An improved measurement of the ground state tensor polarizability of Cesium atoms

We will present the first precision measurement of the ground state tensor polarizability (GSTP) of the Cs F=3 hyperfine level. The GSTP provides a way to test third order atomic calculations, similar to those used to extract the weak charge from atomic parity violation measurements. The Cs atoms are laser cooled and trapped in a 1D optical lattice in a magnetically shielded region, then prepared with equal populations in the stretched states |mF=±3>. The GSTP is measured by simultaneously driving the |mF=±3>→ |mF=±2> transitions in a large electric field. We have demonstrated a relative precision of ~5×10-4, nearly two orders of magnitude more precise than previous experimental and theoretical results for the F=4 hyperfine level. Our precision suggests the future ability to measure the difference between the GSTP of different hyperfine levels, which is sensitive to electric quadrupole interactions. We will discuss our work to ensure against systematic errors, which we expect to end up at about the 5×10-4 level.