Precision optical metrology with alkali-atom isoclinic points

Vapour-phase spectroscopy rarely involves transitions between well-isolated atomic states. Routinely, the spectra comprise overlapped Doppler/pressure-broadened resonances, which leads to a "pulling" of the spectral peaks from their true atomic resonance frequencies. This pulling gives the absorption resonances a temperature sensitivity, which limits their utility for precision spectroscopy when sub-Doppler techniques are not viable. Here, we discuss the use of alkali isoclinic points as a solution to this problem. (paper)