Fast Beam Studies of Excited States of Atoms and Molecules (Physics)

原子和分子的激发态可以在一个 相对没有碰撞和其他扰动的环境 通过使用快速光束技术。 本提案中的工作 利用一种非常灵敏的方法来检测这种状态 使用共振激光激发到非常弱的束缚态 然后进行斯塔克电离。 与此相结合的是非常高的 微波光谱的分辨技术。 实验 建议仔细研究高角度的精细结构， 动量里德堡态的氦，以测试的预测， 相对论原子理论 H2的相似Rydberg态 分子也将被研究，以产生精确的新的 有关H2+离子的信息。 另一个应用程序将是 氢原子n=4精细结构的精确测量 这可能导致精细结构的新测定 常数α

Excited states of atoms and molecules may be studied in an environment relatively free of collisions and other perturbations by the use of fast beam techniques. The work in this proposal makes use of a very sensitive method of detecting such states using resonant laser excitation to a very weakly bound state followed by Stark ionization. Combined with this are very high resolution techniques of microwave spectroscopy. Experiments are proposed to carefully study the fine structure of high angular momentum Rydberg states of helium in order to test predictions of relativistic atomic theory. Similar Rydberg states of the H2 molecule will also be studied in order to yield precise new information about the H2+ ion. Another application will be a precise measurement of n=4 fine structure in atomic hydrogen which may lead to a new determination of the fine structure constant alpha.