English

Precise measurement of HFS of positronium

High Energy Physics - Experiment 2014-11-20 v1 Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

The ground state hyperfine splitting in positronium, ΔHFS\Delta _{\mathrm{HFS}}, is sensitive to high order corrections of QED. A new calculation up to O(α3)O(\alpha ^3) has revealed a 3.9σ3.9 \sigma discrepancy between the QED prediction and the experimental results. This discrepancy might either be due to systematic problems in the previous experiments or to contributions beyond the Standard Model. We propose an experiment to measure ΔHFS\Delta_{\mathrm{HFS}} employing new methods designed to remedy the systematic errors which may have affected the previous experiments. Our experiment will provide an independent check of the discrepancy. The measurement is in progress and a preliminary result of ΔHFS=203.399±0.029GHz(143ppm)\Delta_{\mathrm{HFS}} = 203.399 \pm 0.029 \mathrm{GHz} (143 \mathrm{ppm}) has been obtained. A measurement with a precision of O(1) ppm is expected within a few years.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0912.4370,
  title  = {Precise measurement of HFS of positronium},
  author = {A. Ishida and G. Akimoto and K. Kato and T. Suehara and T. Namba and S. Asai and T. Kobayashi and H. Saito and M. Yoshida and K. Tanaka and A. Yamamoto and I. Ogawa and S. Kobayashi and T. Idehara},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0912.4370},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

5 pages, 6 figures, contributed to POSMOL 2009, will be published in J. Phys.: Conf. Series