title: Vector light shift averaging in paraffin-coated alkali vapor cells.
abstract: Light shifts are an important source of noise and systematics in optically pumped magnetometers. We demonstrate that the long spin-coherence time in paraffin-coated cells leads to spatial averaging of the vector light shift over the entire cell volume. This renders the averaged vector light shift independent, under certain approximations, of the light-intensity distribution within the sensor cell. Importantly, the demonstrated averaging mechanism can be extended to other spatially varying phenomena in anti-relaxation-coated cells with long coherence times.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zhivun
authors.forename: Arne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wickenbrock
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sudyka
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Patton
authors.forename: Szymon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pustelny
authors.forename: Dmitry
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Budker