title: Precessing Ferromagnetic Needle Magnetometer.
abstract: A ferromagnetic needle is predicted to precess about the magnetic field axis at a Larmor frequency Ω under conditions where its intrinsic spin dominates over its rotational angular momentum, Nℏ≫IΩ (I is the moment of inertia of the needle about the precession axis and N is the number of polarized spins in the needle). In this regime the needle behaves as a gyroscope with spin Nℏ maintained along the easy axis of the needle by the crystalline and shape anisotropy. A precessing ferromagnetic needle is a correlated system of N spins which can be used to measure magnetic fields for long times. In principle, by taking advantage of rapid averaging of quantum uncertainty, the sensitivity of a precessing needle magnetometer can far surpass that of magnetometers based on spin precession of atoms in the gas phase. Under conditions where noise from coupling to the environment is subdominant, the scaling with measurement time t of the quantum- and detection-limited magnetometric sensitivity is t^{-3/2}. The phenomenon of ferromagnetic needle precession may be of particular interest for precision measurements testing fundamental physics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, California State University-East Bay, Hayward, California 94542-3084, USA.
authors.forename: Derek F
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Jackson Kimball
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Alexander O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Sushkov
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz Institute Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg University, 55099 Mainz, Germany.|Department of Physics, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-7300, USA.|Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Budker