The Nuclear Physics of Hyperfine Structure in Hydrogenic Atoms

Abstract

The theory of QED corrections to hyperfine structure in light hydrogenic atoms and ions has recently advanced to the point that the uncertainty of these corrections is much smaller than 1 part per million (ppm), while the experiments are even more accurate. The difference of the experimental results and the corresponding QED theory is due to nuclear effects, which are primarily the result of the finite nuclear charge and magnetization distributions. This difference varies from tens to hundreds of ppm. We have calculated the dominant nuclear component of the 1s hyperfine interval for deuterium, tritium and singly ionized helium, using a unified approach with modern second-generation potentials. The calculated nuclear corrections are within 3% of the experimental values for deuterium and tritium, but are roughly 20% discrepant for helium. The nuclear corrections for the trinucleon systems can be qualitatively understood by invoking SU(4) symmetry.

12 pages, 1 figure, latex - submitted to Physics Letters B

References in corpus (4)

• Chiral Symmetry and Three-Nucleon Forces
• Zemach Moments for Hydrogen and Deuterium
• Hyperfine structure in hydrogen and helium ion
• Hyperfine Structure of the Ground and First Excited States in Light Hydrogen-Like Atoms and High-Precision Tests of QED

Cited by in corpus (12)

• Parameterization and applications of the low-$Q^2$ nucleon vector form factors
• Hyperfine structure of Li and Be^+
• Nuclear-structure corrections to the hyperfine splitting in muonic deuterium
• Electric Dipole Polarizabilities of Hydrogen and Helium Isotopes
• Deuteron Dipole Polarizabilities and Sum Rules
• Probing uncertainties of nuclear structure corrections in light muonic atoms
• Nuclear vector polarizability correction to hyperfine splitting
• Two-photon exchange on neutron and the hyperfine splitting
• Hyperfine structure of S states in Li and Be^+
• Breit Equation with Form Factors in the Hydrogen Atom
• Nuclear polarizability effects in ${}^3$He${}^{+}$ hyperfine splitting
• Nuclear recoil correction to the hyperfine splitting in atomic systems