  We present an experimental study of the intrinsic magnetometric sensitivity
of an optical/rf-frequency double resonance magnetometer in which linearly
polarized laser light is used in the optical pumping and detection processes.
We show that a semi-empirical model of the magnetometer can be used to describe
the magnetic resonance spectra. Then, we present an efficient method to predict
the optimum operating point of the magnetometer, i.e., the light power and rf
Rabi frequency providing maximum magnetometric sensitivity. Finally, we apply
the method to investigate the evolution of the optimum operating point with
temperature. The method is very efficient to determine relaxation rates and
thus allowed us to determine the three collisional disalignment cross sections
for the components of the alignment tensor. Both first and second harmonic
signals from the magnetometer are considered and compared.
