Rabi-Oscillation Spectroscopy for Precise Measurement of Hyperfine Structure of Muonium Atoms

Abstract

We have developed a spectroscopic method to directly determine the transition frequency of atoms from the time evolution of Rabi oscillation and named it Rabi-oscillation spectroscopy. Rabi-oscillation spectroscopy does not need to sweep the frequency or draw a resonance curve to determine the resonance frequency. This makes it possible to use data taken under different conditions with different power of the electromagnetic waves in an integrated manner and enables more efficient measurements. We have applied the Rabi-oscillation spectroscopy to the precise measurement of muonium hyperfine structure and verified the effectiveness of this new spectroscopic technique. Rabi-oscillation spectroscopy can be applied in principle to various spectroscopic experiments, and is expected to be particularly useful for spectroscopy of short-lived exotic atoms and nuclei produced at accelerators, where efficiency is important because the number of the atoms and nuclei is very limited.