Isotope study of the nonlinear pressure shifts of 85Rb and 87Rb hyperfine resonances in Ar, Kr, and Xe buffer gases

Measurements of the 0-0 hyperfine resonant frequencies of ground-state 85Rb atoms show a nonlinear dependence on the pressure of the buffer gases Ar, Kr, and Xe. The nonlinearities are similar to those previously observed with 87Rb and 133Cs and presumed to come from alkali-metal-noble-gas van der Waals molecules. However, the shape of the nonlinearity observed for Xe conflicts with previous theory, and the nonlinearities for Ar and Kr disagree with the expected isotopic scaling of previous 87Rb results. Improving the modeling alleviates most of these discrepancies by treating rotation quantum mechanically and considering additional spin interactions in the molecules. Including the dipolar-hyperfine interaction allows simultaneous fitting of the linear and nonlinear shifts of both 85Rb and 87Rb in either Ar, Kr, or Xe buffer gases with a minimal set of shared, isotope-independent parameters. To the limit of experimental accuracy, the shifts in He and N2 were linear with pressure. The results are of practical interest to vapor-cell atomic clocks and related devices.