Quantum Noise of an Atomic Spin Polarization Measurement

We explore the fundamental noise of the atomic spin measurement performed via polarization analysis of the probe light. The noise is shown to consist of the quantum noise of the probe and the quantum noise of atomic spins. In the experiment with cold atoms in a magneto-optical trap we demonstrate the reduction of the former by 2.5 dB below the standard quantum limit. For the latter we reach the quantum limit set by fluctuations of uncorrelated individual atomic spins. We outline the way to overcome this limit using a recent theoretical proposal on spin squeezing.