Measurements of Transitions between Different Hyperfine Structure Substates of Hydrogen using a Sona Transition Unit

Smitmanns, Hendrik

Master Thesis

FZJ-2022-01958

Measurements of Transitions between Different Hyperfine Structure Substates of Hydrogen using a Sona Transition Unit

Smitmanns, H. (Corresponding author)FZJ*

2022

71 pp. (2022) = Masterarbeit, RWTH Aachen, 2022

Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/31062

Abstract: Nuclear spin polarization and its phenomena have been studied since the early days of quantum mechanics. Today, in particular, nuclear spin polarized hydrogenand deuterium are used in many ways, e.g. as target material or in the form of polarized beams. One way of measuring the polarization of such a beam is the Lambshiftpolarimeter. In an experiment conducted at the Institut für Kernphysik of the Forschungszentrum Jülich to study the influence of a Sona transition unit on thepolarization of a nuclear spin-polarized hydrogen beam, unexpected oscillations of the occupation numbers of different hyperfine substates of hydrogen atoms as a functionof the magnetic field were discovered. The oscillations are induced within the Sona transition unit, which allows an exchange of the occupation numbers of the alpha 1 andbeta3 states by reversing the direction of the magnetic field defining the quantization axis.The transition energies between the different substates were in the range of only a few neV. In order to investigate this phenomenon further, a similar experiment is set up in Jülich which allows measuring these oscillations of the occupation numbers of metastable 2S_1/2 hydrogen as well as the recording of the thereby produced spectra of the two alpha states. In addition, an analysis method is developed and applied to determine the energies of the transitions that occur between the different substates. The aim of the method is to measure these transition energies with an accuracy that allows the QED corrections to the classical Breit-Rabi formula to be detected.

Keyword(s): Nuclei and Particles (1st) ; Nuclear Physics (2nd)

Note: Masterarbeit, RWTH Aachen, 2022

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