Optical pumping in rubidium-87 — Circular polarization on the (F g = 2 ↔ F e = 3) transition in the D2-line, in the presence of a magnetic field

We present results of a method for calculating optical pumping rates in 87 Rb, as described in [1]. We use circularly polarized light to populate a stretched angular momentum state in the F g = 2 hyperfine structure level of the ground state. We include in the analysis an applied weak magnetic field. The method is shown to function well for the the studied system. Absolute scale level populations as functions of time, detuning, intensity, magnetic field and starting parameters are derived.