Precision spectroscopy of the 3s-3p fine structure doublet in Mg+

TL;DR

This paper reports high-precision measurements of the 3s-3p fine structure doublet in Mg+ ions, providing data crucial for testing fundamental physics and improving previous measurements by over two orders of magnitude.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel application of a recent spectroscopy method to accurately measure Mg+ transition frequencies and isotope shifts, enhancing precision significantly.

Findings

Transition frequencies and isotope shifts measured with high accuracy

Data useful for testing variations in the fine structure constant

Improved measurement accuracy by over two orders of magnitude

Abstract

We apply a recently demonstrated method for precision spectroscopy on strong transitions in trapped ions to measure both fine structure components of the 3s-3p transition in 24-Mg+ and 26-Mg+. We deduce absolute frequency reference data for transition frequencies, isotope shifts and fine structure splittings that are in particular useful for comparison with quasar absorption spectra, which test possible space-time variations of the fine structure constant. The measurement accuracy improves previous literature values, when existing, by more than two orders of magnitude.