English

Reexamination of helium fine structure

Atomic Physics 2015-05-13 v1

Abstract

In order to explain discrepancies between theoretical predictions and experimental data for the helium fine structure, we check and recalculate all theoretical contributions up to orders m\alpha^7 and m^2/M\alpha^6. The previous result for the m\alpha^7 correction is improved by a much more accurate calculation of relativistic corrections to the Bethe logarithm. The theoretical values of the 2^3P_0-2^3P_1 and 2^3P_1-2^3P_2 fine structure intervals in helium are, correspondingly, \nu_{01} = 29616946.2(1.6) kHz and \nu_{12} = 2291177.3(1.6) kHz, with the uncertanties being due to higher-order effects. For the small interval \nu_{12}, the theoretical value agrees with the experimental data, whereas for the large interval \nu_{01}, a discrepancy of about 3 standard deviations is present.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.3046,
  title  = {Reexamination of helium fine structure},
  author = {K. Pachucki and V. A. Yerokhin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.3046},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

19 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-21T13:03:42.751Z