Rotational Frequency Shift

Abstract

The notion of the rotational frequency shift, an analog of the Doppler shift, is introduced. This new frequency shift occurs for atomic systems that lack rotational invariance, but have stationary states in a rotating frame. The rotational frequency shift is given by the scalar product of the angular velocity and the angular momentum of the emitted photon in full analogy with the standard Doppler shift which is given by the scalar product of the linear velocity of the source and the linear momentum of the photon. The rotational frequency shift can be observed only in a M\"ossbauer-like regime when the angular recoil is negligible.