Abstract:
A non-zero neutron electric dipole moment (nEDM) would indicate
time-reversal and charge-parity violation. Our collaboration is
developing an experiment at TRIUMF to improve the sensitivity to the
nEDM by one order of magnitude ($10^{-27}$~e$\cdot$cm). I developed a
highly sensitive magnetometer based on nonlinear magneto-optical
rotation (NMOR) in Rb vapour. In the future such magnetometers will
serve in an array to form an auxiliary magnetometer
system monitoring the stability and uniformity of the magnetic field
in the nEDM experiment. The operation of the magnetometer in a
free-induction-decay mode was the focus of this thesis. The precision
of the field measurement, drifts over time, the impact of degaussing, and
measurements of transverse fields were studied using the magnetometer.
