Precision Laser Studies of Basic Atoms and Nuclei

本研究发展了激光技术和精密激光技术，并将其应用于氦精细结构的研究和氢、氦核尺寸的精确测定。电子-电子相互作用是我们周围物质结构的核心，对氦精细结构的实验和理论研究为我们对这种相互作用的基本理解提供了最精确的测试之一。氦具有电子-电子相互作用的复杂性，但仍然足够简单，精细结构理论的精度目前不受数值近似的限制，而是受这种相互作用的基本量子电动力学的限制。在氦中精细结构的工作也导致精细结构常数α的精确测定，然后为这个基本常数和它们所涉及的物理的其他精确测定提供一致性检查。这些实验结果中的同位素变化可以确定氦-3和氚的电荷半径，并与少核子理论的预测和核力的基本描述进行比较。这项工作为测试(1)氦原子（最简单的多电子原子）中电子-电子相互作用的原子理论和计算，以及(2)预测观察到的少核子核大小的核相互作用和计算提供了实验基准。桌面实验为高中生、学士、硕士、博士和博士后提供开发新型激光源和光学技术的经验和培训。然后，他们应用它们来测试我们目前对这些基本物理系统的理解。目前正在进行特别的实验努力，以发展激光从红外到电磁波谱的蓝色和紫外线部分的有效和方便的频率转换。这一领域的进展对从半导体晶圆检测到生物医学仪器等广泛的科学和技术领域具有潜在的好处。

This research develops laser technology and precision laser techniques and applies them to the study of helium fine structure and the precise determination of hydrogen and helium nuclear sizes. Electron-electron interactions are central to the structure of the matter around us, and experimental and theoretical studies on helium fine structure provide among the most precise tests of our fundamental understanding of this interaction. Helium has the complexities of the electron-electron interaction, but is nevertheless sufficiently simple that the precision of fine structure theory is not currently limited by numerical approximations, but by the fundamental quantum electrodynamics of this interaction. This fine structure work in helium also leads to a precise determination of the fine structure constant alpha, which then provides a consistency check on other precision determinations of this fundamental constant and the physics that they involve. Isotopic shifts in these experimental results allow the charge radii of helium-3 and tritium to be determined and compared to predictions of few-nucleon theory and the underlying description of the nuclear force.This work provides experimental benchmarks with which to test (1) the atomic theory and computation of electron-electron interactions in helium, the simplest multi-electron atom, and (2) the nuclear interactions and computations that predict the observed size of few-nucleon nuclei. The tabletop experiments provide high school, bachelors, masters, doctoral, and post-doctoral students experience and training in developing new laser sources and optical techniques. They then apply them to test our current understanding of these basic physical systems. Particular experimental effort is being undertaken to develop efficient and convenient frequency conversion of laser light from the infrared to the blue and UV portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Progress in this area has potential benefits to broad areas of science and technology, from semiconductor wafer inspection to biomedical instrumentation.