Analysis of atom detection via the magnetic optical effect

We demonstrated a new method of atom detection by means of the magnetic optical effect. The number density of the atom cloud was measured by detecting the rotation angle of the polarization plane of linearly polarized probe light when propagating inside the atomic cloud. Detuning, the magnetic field and light intensity dependencies of the rotation angle were studied theoretically and experimentally to find the best parameter for atom detection. In this way, we managed to achieve a rotation angle of 0.22 rad with a signal to noise ratio (SNR) of 75 and a contrast of 87.5%.