Document Type
Article
Language
eng
Publication Date
9-13-2018
Publisher
Springer Nature Limited
Source Publication
Nature
Source ISSN
0028-0836
Abstract
In 1906, Theodore Lyman discovered his eponymous series of transitions in the extreme-ultraviolet region of the atomic hydrogen spectrum. The patterns in the hydrogen spectrum helped to establish the emerging theory of quantum mechanics, which we now know governs the world at the atomic scale. Since then, studies involving the Lyman-α line—the 1S–2P transition at a wavelength of 121.6 nanometres—have played an important part in physics and astronomy, as one of the most fundamental atomic transitions in the Universe. For example, this transition has long been used by astronomers studying the intergalactic medium and testing cosmological models via the so-called ‘Lyman-α forest’ of absorption lines at different redshifts. Here we report the observation of the Lyman-α transition in the antihydrogen atom, the antimatter counterpart of hydrogen. Using narrow-line-width, nanosecond-pulsed laser radiation, the 1S–2P transition was excited in magnetically trapped antihydrogen. The transition frequency at a field of 1.033 tesla was determined to be 2,466,051.7 ± 0.12 gigahertz (1σ uncertainty) and agrees with the prediction for hydrogen to a precision of 5 × 10−8. Comparisons of the properties of antihydrogen with those of its well-studied matter equivalent allow precision tests of fundamental symmetries between matter and antimatter. Alongside the ground-state hyperfine and 1S–2S transitions recently observed in antihydrogen, the Lyman-α transition will permit laser cooling of antihydrogen, thus providing a cold and dense sample of anti-atoms for precision spectroscopy and gravity measurements. In addition to the observation of this fundamental transition, this work represents both a decisive technological step towards laser cooling of antihydrogen, and the extension of antimatter spectroscopy to quantum states possessing orbital angular momentum.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Ahmadi, M.; Alves, B. X.R.; Baker, C. J.; Bertsche, W.; Capra, A.; Carruth, C.; Cesar, C. L.; Charlton, M.; Cohen, S.; Collister, R.; Eriksson, S.; Evans, A.; Evetts, N.; Fajans, J.; Friesen, T.; Fujiwara, M. C.; Gill, D. R.; Hangst, J. S.; Hardy, W. N.; Hayden, M. E.; Hunter, E. D.; Isaac, C. A.; Johnson, M. A.; Jones, J. M.; Jones, S. A.; Jonsell, S.; Khramov, A.; Knapp, P.; Kurchaninov, L.; Madsen, N.; Maxwell, D.; McKenna, J. T. K.; Menary, S.; Michan, J. M.; Momose, T.; Munich, J. J.; Olchanski, K.; Olin, A.; Pusa, P.; Rasmussen, C. O.; Robicheaux, F.; Sacramento, R. L.; Sameed, M.; Sarid, E.; Silveira, D. M.; Starko, D, M.; Stutter, G.; So, C.; Tharp, Timothy; Thompson, R. I.; van der Werf, D. P.; and Wurtele, J. S., "Observation of the 1S–2P Lyman-α Transition in Antihydrogen" (2018). Physics Faculty Research and Publications. 177.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/physics_fac/177
Comments
Published version.
Nature, Vol. 561 (September 13, 2018): 211-215. DOI. This article is Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated therwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.