Abstract
The measurement of the 2S1/2 state Lamb shift in hydrogen was one of the main stimuli for the development of quantum electrodynamics. Since the first experiment by W. E. LAMB and R. C. RETHERFORD [1] the Lamb shift has been measured for a great many hydrogenic states, and such measurements are among the most precise tests of QED [2]. One measurement which was conspicuously missing from this list, however, was the Lamb shift of the hydrogen ground state. This has only been measured in the past few years [3,4] and the experiment described here is a continuation of those measurements to higher precision by the use of several technical innovations. We have also made an improved measurement of the Lyman-α hydrogen-deuterium isotope shift sufficiently precise to give the first experimental confirmation of the predicted relativistic nuclear recoil correction. The technical improvements mentioned are the development of a highly sensitive new form of Doppler-free spectroscopy, polarization spectroscopy, and the use of a single frequency cw dye laser at 4860Å with a high power pulsed amplifier system.
Work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant NSF-14786 and by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under Contract No. N00014-15-C-0841.
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References
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Wieman, C., Hänsch, T.W. (1977). Precision Measurement of the Ground State Lamb Shift in Hydrogen and Deuterium. In: Hall, J.L., Carlsten, J.L. (eds) Laser Spectroscopy III. Springer Series in Optical Sciences, vol 7. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-35968-5_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-35968-5_5
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