Laser spectroscopy of atomic hydrogen

Abstract

Laser spectroscopy of atomic hydrogen has been important in the recent development of Doppler-hee laser techniques and offers stringent tests of atomic theory together with precise measurements of fundamental atomic constants. In this review we outline the theory of the structure of atomic hydrogen and describe the techniques of Doppler-free laser spectroscopy. This field has been extremely active in recent years and we bring together the most recent results ofmeasurements of the Rydberg constant and the groundstate Lamh shift.

Laser Spectroscopy

“…A summary of all the transitions used in precision measurements of atomic hydrogen in recent years is shown in the schematic energy-level diagram in figure 1 . For more details the reader is referred to the original papers and to a recent review [12] . I shall concentrate on a description of some recent progress on studies of the 1S 1/2 to 2S 1J2 transition since this seems likely to offer the best resolution in future experiments .…”

Two-color, two-photon laser-induced polarization spectroscopy (LIPS) measurements of atomic hydrogen in near-adiabatic, atmospheric pressure hydrogen/air flames

“…The energy level structure and spectroscopy of the hydrogen atom have of course been studied extensively [18,19]. As is the case for many atomic species in flames, the first few accessible electronic energy levels for the H atom lie in the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) spectral region.…”

Modification of the transition rate in the hydrogen atom placed in finite space

“…Generally, the energy levels are expressed by real parts of the energy eigen-values while the life-times of energy levels, equivalently transition rates, are given by imaginary values of the complex energy eigen-values. Therefore, one may expect that the atomic transition rates will also be modified as long as the energy levels are shifted in finite space [5,6]. In this paper, we investigate the atomic transition rate in the framework similar to Casimir's calculation of the attractive force exerting between two plates [1].…”