Journal Article

Storage-ring laser spectroscopy of accelerator-produced hydrogen-like 208Bi82

Müller, Patrick, Imgram, Phillip, Ratajczyk, Tim, Steck, Markus, Ueberholz, Ken, Lorentz, Bernd, Mohr, Konstantin, König, Kristian, Meisner, Johann, Passon, Stephan, Glorius, Jan, Nörtershäuser, Wilfried, Litvinov, Yury A., Andelkovic, Zoran, Roßbach, Jon, Sanjari, Shahab, Sidhu, Ragandeep Singh, Winters, Danyal, Freire Fernández, David, Weinheimer, Christian, Litvinov, Sergey, Spillmann, Uwe, Heß, Regina, Leckenby, Guy, Horst, Max, Geppert, Christopher, Hannen, Volker, Sánchez, Rodolfo, Stöhlker, Thomas, Rausch, Simon, Brandau, Carsten, Chen, Rui Jiu, Klammes, Sebastian

2025

Overview

Quantum electrodynamics has been tested to accuracies below the parts-per-trillion level in light-mass systems. However, tests in heavy-mass systems with a large nuclear charge have not yet reached similar accuracy. Here we report the hyperfine-structure splitting in the 1 s ground state of radioactive hydrogen-like 208 Bi 82+ . We produced the isotope in a nuclear reaction and injected the beam into a storage ring to perform laser spectroscopy on samples of 10 5 ions of Bi 82+ that have only a single remaining electron, which experiences extreme magnetic-field strengths. Our result for the hyperfine splitting is in excellent agreement with the most accurate prediction based on a combination of quantum electrodynamics calculations with an empirical treatment of the hyperfine-structure anomaly ratio extracted from laser spectroscopy on neutral atoms of 209 Bi and 208 Bi. This achievement paves the way for the most stringent test of quantum electrodynamics in strong magnetic fields and demonstrates the feasibility of laser spectroscopy on other exotic ions with low production yields. Hyperfine splitting was measured using the laser spectroscopy of accelerator-produced hydrogen-like bismuth ions. This demonstrates the feasibility of such measurements with other exotic ions with low production yields in a storage ring.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 639/766/36/1121 / 639/766/36/1122 / 639/766/387/1126 / Accuracy / Atomic / Atoms & subatomic particles / Bismuth isotopes / Charged particles / Classical and Continuum Physics / Complex Systems / Condensed Matter Physics / Energy / Feasibility / Hydrogen / Ion beams / Ions / Isotopes / Laser spectroscopy / Lasers / Magnetic fields / Mathematical and Computational Physics / Molecular / Neutral atoms / Nuclear reactions / Optical and Plasma Physics / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Quantum electrodynamics / Quantum field theory / Ring lasers / Spectroscopy / Spectrum analysis / Splitting / Theoretical