English

Spectroscopic test of Bose-Einstein statistics for photons

Atomic Physics 2015-05-14 v2

Abstract

Using Bose-Einstein-statistics-forbidden two-photon excitation in atomic barium, we have limited the rate of statistics-violating transitions, as a fraction ν\nu of an equivalent statistics-allowed transition rate, to ν<4.0×1011\nu<4.0\times10^{-11} at the 90% confidence level. This is an improvement of more than three orders of magnitude over the best previous result. Additionally, hyperfine-interaction enabling of the forbidden transition has been observed, to our knowledge, for the first time.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1001.1771,
  title  = {Spectroscopic test of Bose-Einstein statistics for photons},
  author = {D. English and V. V. Yashchuk and D. Budker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.1771},
  year   = {2015}
}