Hyperfine Structure of Hydrogen, Deuterium, and Tritium

Abstract

The optical transmission of an optically oriented rubidium vapor in spin-exchange equilibrium with atomic hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium has been used to measure with high precision the hyperfine splittings of these paramagnetic atoms. The results are $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\nu}(\mathrm{H})=1420.405726\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.000030 \mathrm{Mc}/sec,$ $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\nu}(\mathrm{D})=327.384349\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.000005 \mathrm{Mc}/sec,$ and $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\nu}(\mathrm{T})=1516.701396\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.000030 \mathrm{Mc}/sec.$ These results are based on a value of the hyperfine splitting of ${\mathrm{Cs}}^{133}$ which is taken to be $\ensuremath{\Delta}\ensuremath{\nu}({\mathrm{Cs}}^{133})=9192.631840 \mathrm{Mc}/sec.$These measurements were made in various buffer gases which caused a shift in the observed hyperfine splitting, and the results given represent extrapolations to zero pressure. The pressure shifts were measured for H in argon, neon, helium, and molecular hydrogen and were measured for D and T in argon and neon. The assigned limits of error represent the range of disagreement of the zero-pressure extrapolations in the different buffer gases.