Polarizing Nuclear-Spin By A Sequence Of Short-Laser Pulses: Application To Polarize Muonium

We propose a new and simple scheme to polarize nuclear-spin by a sequence of short-laser pulses. This is a variant of optical pumping, but completely free from a complicated optimization procedure which is usually required to match the laser spectrum to that of the hyperfine transition lines of the target. Moreover the time needed to complete the polarization is in the order of tens of ns, which is more than a few orders of magnitude shorter than that usually needed to polarize nuclei with a continuous-wave (CW) laser. As a specific example we apply the idea to polarize muonium (mu(+)e(-), lifetime 2.2 mu s).