In-beam measurement of the hydrogen hyperfine splitting - towards antihydrogen spectroscopy
Title | In-beam measurement of the hydrogen hyperfine splitting - towards antihydrogen spectroscopy |
Publication Type | Journal Article |
Year of Publication | 2017 |
Authors | Diermaier, M, Jepsen, CB, Kolbinger, B, Malbrunot, C, Massiczek, O, Sauerzopf, C, Simon, MC, Zmeskal, J, Widmann, E |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Volume | 8 |
Pagination | 1–9 |
Date Published | 12/06/2017 |
Abstract | Antihydrogen, the lightest atom consisting purely of antimatter, is an ideal laboratory to study the CPT symmetry by comparison to hydrogen. With respect to absolute precision, transitions within the ground-state hyperfine structure (GS-HFS) are most appealing by virtue of their small energy separation. ASACUSA proposed employing a beam of cold antihydrogen atoms in a Rabi-type experiment to determine the GS-HFS in a field-free region. Here we present a measurement of the zero-field hydrogen GS-HFS using the spectroscopy apparatus of ASACUSA's antihydrogen experiment. The measured value of {\$}\backslashnu{\_}\backslashmathrm{\{}HF{\}}{\$}={\$}1{\~{}}420{\~{}}405{\~{}}748.4(3.4)(1.6){\~{}}\backslashtextrm{\{}Hz{\}}{\$} with a relative precision of {\$}\backslashDelta{\$}{\$}\backslashnu{\_}\backslashmathrm{\{}HF{\}}{\$}/{\$}\backslashnu{\_}\backslashmathrm{\{}HF{\}}{\$}={\$}2.7\backslashtimes10{\^{}}{\{}-9{\}}{\$} constitutes the most precise determination of this quantity in a beam and verifies the developed spectroscopy methods for the antihydrogen HFS experiment to the ppb level. Together with the recently presented observation of antihydrogen atoms {\$}2.7{\~{}}\backslashtextrm{\{}m{\}}{\$} downstream of the production region, the prerequisites for a measurement with antihydrogen are now available within the ASACUSA collaboration. |
URL | https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15749 |
DOI | 10.1038/ncomms15749 |