Hyperfine Structure of Hydrogen, Deuterium, and Tritium

The optical transmission of an optically oriented rubidium vapor in spin-exchange equilibrium with atomic hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium has been used to measure with high precision the hyperfine splittings of these paramagnetic atoms. The results are Δν(H)=1420.405726±0.000030 Mc/sec, Δν(D)=327.384349±0.000005 Mc/sec, and Δν(T)=1516.701396±0.000030 Mc/sec. These results are based on a value of the hyperfine splitting of Cs¹³³ which is taken to be Δν(Cs¹³³)=9192.631840 Mc/sec.These measurements were made in various buffer gases which caused a shift in the observed hyperfine splitting, and the results given represent extrapolations to zero pressure. The pressure shifts were measured for H in argon, neon, helium, and molecular hydrogen and were measured for D and T in argon and neon. The assigned limits of error represent the range of disagreement of the zero-pressure extrapolations in the different buffer gases.