point to point reply: Referee 1: Comment: 1. The present results should be put in context by including more discussion of the field, including other studies of light shifts and coherence in single atom traps. References [R1]-[R4] are particularly relevant, and should be discussed in the manuscript. Reply: In this article we present an analysis of the influence of the trapping light on the light-atom coupling efficiency and demonstrate the realization of a hyperfine qubit with strong, qubit-state selective coupling to a propagating free space mode. We believe that such a system will be useful for the generation of entangled photons. We extended the introduction to clarify our motivation and put our work in context with published research. We also added nine references (Ref: 6-7, 10-16) -------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Reference [R3] in particular merits detailed discussion, since there is significant overlap. This reference has data and discussions about the effect of trap depth and optical polarization on single atom spectra. It is surprising that the authors did not reference this work since they have done so in earlier publications. The present manuscript presents different data (transmission vs. fluorescence) but it is not clear what this adds. There should be discussion of why the authors focus on this figure of merit versus those used in previous works. There are certainly interesting applications of strongly-coupled absorption beams but they are not clear in the current manuscript. Reply: Reference [R3] is relevant and we included the article in our references. We are interested in combining good light-atom coupling with good hyperfine coherence. Thus we use the transmission to investigate the system because it allows us to precisely quantify the light-atom interaction strength. We extended the introduction to clarify this. -------------------------------------------------------------- 3. The effects of magnetic fields have also been previously considered, especially in [R1] and [R2], where a magnetic bias field is necessary for good coherence. Reply: That's correct, here we have shown that the effect of the magnetic field on the optical coupling is also significant. -------------------------------------------------------------- 4. [R1] and [R2] also discuss the well-known effect that a focused beam presents a “virtual” magnetic field, even with linearly polarized trapping light, due to the curved optical wave fronts. Therefore the author’s claim that the vector light shift vanishes is not correct. It is possible that the vector light shifts are negligible in this case, but that should be argued. Reply: Compared to the experiments described [R1] and [R2], our trapping beam is not strongly focused; the trap beam waist is about 2~lambda for which the “virtual” magnetic fields are negligible. We added the beam waist to the description of the experiment. -------------------------------------------------------------- 5. References [R1]-[R2], and the manuscript reference [25], have considerably longer coherence time. In particular, [R1] and [R2] are also using stretched (non-clock) states. Ref. [25] uses the clock states, so perhaps the comparison is not fair, but the authors have not really justified why they prefer to use a state with an optical cycling transition. The present work should be placed in the context of these other results. Reply: We aim to realize a hyperfine qubit with strong, qubit-state selective coupling to a propagating free space mode. We believe that such a system will be useful for the generation of entangled photons. We extended the introduction to clarify state what our motivation is and put our work in context with published research. We also added nine references. Regarding the comparison of the observed coherence times, references [R1]-[R2] show damping times of Rabi oscillations on the order of few hundreds microseconds. We observe similar damping values (Fig 5b). However References [R1]-[R2] don't report any coherence decay rates for Ramsey or spin echo sequences. -------------------------------------------------------------- 6. The manuscript should have more technical details about the dipole trap, such as waist and axial width, as well as polarization purity and whether that is a limitation. Reply: Our setup has been described in detail in previous work and in this article we give a concise summary of the setup. We added the waist of the dipole trap beam and the polarization purity to the main text. The polarization purity is not the main limitation for the hyperfine coherence time. The polarization extinction ratio for the dipole trap beam is about 34dB from which we expect the vector light-shift induced dephasing rate to be more than an order of magnitude lower than what we observe. Our coherence time is most likely limited by magnetic field noise. -------------------------------------------------------------- Referee 2: general comment: Since the results of the present manuscript are directly and specifically tied to the authors system potential publication would require an effort to identify the additional physical insight which is gained form the author’s efforts with respect to the already published material. reply: We believe our results are relevant to many researchers working with neutral atoms in optical tweezers. In this field the effective coupling of light to the atoms is a big challenge. We demonstrated some subtle effects of the tensor light shift on the optical coupling and our approach to achieve good coherence with good optical coupling will be of interest to the community. specific comment: 1- The dipole trap has linear polarization perpendicular to the quantization axis (so balanced sigma+/-), to avoid the vectorial light shifts. Would there be an advantage to have it parallel to the B field, i.e. Pi- polarized? reply: To be able to drive the closed sigma^- transition F=2 m=-2 to F'=3 m=-3, we apply the magnetic field along the optical axis of the high-NA lens. Thus a dipole trap that is parallel polarized to the B-field would require another high-NA lens with an optical axis perpendicular to the quantization axis. While this is possible for low-NA lenses, it is not possible for high-NA lenses which (by definition) cover a large part of the solid angle. 2- There must be an error of an order of magnitude in the B-field axis of Fig. 3 since the maximum is around 14 Gauss = 1.4 mT, and in the text the maximum reported value is 144 uT. reply: We corrected the error and changed the units in Figure 3 to Tesla. 3- In part IV to test the discrimination of bright and dark states during state detection, it is not clear if they drive the atom with the probe beam along the quantization axis, or from the side with the "state redout beam" (Fig. 2). If they drive it from the side, which polarization is used? In that case the sigma- polarization is not defined, and the coupling should be lower and differ from their previous characterization (Fig. 3). reply: We use the "state readout beam" for the discrimination of bright and dark states during state detection. This beam the drives F=2 to F'=3 but not specifically the closed transition. The "state readout beam" is not strongly coupled to the atom, i.e. strongly focused through the high-NA lenses. The strongly coupled mode is the strongly focused, propagating mode through the high-NA lenses.