Exploiting the Planck-Einstein Relation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel spectroscopic method exploiting the Planck-Einstein relation to measure hyperfine splittings in metastable hydrogen atoms, confirming quantum quantization and enabling investigation of QED effects.

Contribution

The authors develop a new spectroscopic technique using a Lamb-shift polarimeter and a simple magnetic setup to measure energy differences and frequencies directly related by the Planck-Einstein relation.

Findings

Resonances at integer multiples of Planck's constant were observed.

The method confirms quantum quantization in the micro-cosmos.

It allows measurement of hyperfine splittings and QED effects in hydrogen.

Abstract

The origin of quantum physics was the discovery of the base unit of electromagnetic action $h$ by Max Planck in 1900 when he analyzed the experimental results of the black body radiation. This permitted Albert Einstein a few years later to explain the photoelectric effect by the absorption of photons with an energy of $E = h \cdot f$. We exploit the Planck-Einstein relation in a new type of fundamental spectroscopic measurements of direct transitions between two states with energy differences of about 10 neV and induced frequencies of a few MHz. Employing a Lamb-shift polarimeter and a Sona transition unit, featuring a relatively simple magnetic field configuration of two opposing solenoidal coils, we were able to determine $f$ and measure $E$ independently. Only resonances corresponding to integer multiples of Planck's constant $h$ were observed in our setup, which can very well be explained quantitatively by the Schr\"odinger equation. This new method beautifully demonstrates the quantization in the micro-cosmos and allows one to measure the hyperfine splitting energies between the substates with $F=1$ and $m_F = -1, 0, +1$ of metastable hydrogen atoms as function of a magnetic field and, thus, to investigate the influence of QED corrections on the Breit-Rabi diagram.