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The Fermi-contact interaction that characterizes collisional spin exchange of a noble gas with an alkali-metal vapor also gives rise to NMR and EPR frequency shifts of the noble-gas nucleus and the alkali-metal atom, respectively. We have measured the enhancement factor κ0 that characterizes these shifts for Rb-129Xe to be 493±31, making use of the previously measured value of κ0 for Rb-3He. This result allows accurate 129Xe polarimetry with no need to reference a thermal-equilibrium NMR signal.

We present a method for the production of liquid hyperpolarized 129Xe that employs spin-exchange optical pumping in the gas phase and subsequent phase exchange with a column of xenon liquid. A convection loop inside the sealed glass cell allows efficient transfer of magnetization between the gas and liquid phases. By condensing to liquid a large fraction of the sample, this scheme permits the polarization of many more 129Xe atoms in a given sealed-cell volume than would otherwise be possible. We have thus far produced a steady-state polarization of 8% in 0.1 mL of liquid with a characteristic rise time of ≈15 min. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We find that if solid xenon is formed from liquid xenon, denoted "ice," there is a 10% increase in 129Xe longitudinal relaxation T1 time (taken at 77 K and 2 T) over a trickle-freeze formation, denoted "snow." Forming xenon ice also gives an unprecedented reproducibility of 129Xe T1 measurements across a range of 77-150 K. This temperature dependence roughly follows the theory of spin rotation mediated by Raman scattering of harmonic phonons, though it results in a smaller-than-predicted spin-rotation coupling strength cK0/h. Enriched ice 129Xe T1 experiments show no isotopic dependence of bulk relaxation mechanisms at 77 K and at kilogauss fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]