Measurement of Positronium hyperfine splitting with quantum oscillation

TL;DR

This paper reports a precise measurement of positronium hyperfine splitting using quantum oscillation in a magnetic field, confirming theoretical predictions and previous experimental results.

Contribution

It introduces a high-precision experimental method to measure positronium hyperfine splitting via quantum oscillation with advanced magnet and detection technology.

Findings

Measured hyperfine splitting: 203.324 GHz

Results agree with theoretical calculations

Measurement uncertainty is minimized

Abstract

Interference between different energy eigenstates in a quantum system results in an oscillation with a frequency which is proportional to the difference in energy between the states. Such an oscillation is observable in polarized positronium when it is placed in a magnetic field. In order to measure the hyperfine splitting of positronium, we perform the precise measurement of this oscillation using a high quality superconducting magnet and fast photon-detectors. A result of $203.324 \pm 0.039\rm{~(stat.)} \pm 0.015\rm{(~sys.)}$~GHz is obtained which is consistent with both theoretical calculations and previous precise measurements.