DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF THE FINE-STRUCTURE INTERVALS IN THE $^{3}P$ GROUND STATES OF OXYGEN AND CARBON ATOMS BY LASER MAGNETIC RESONANCE

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1979

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Ohio State University

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The far-infrared magnetic dipole transitions between fine-structure levels of the $2^{3}P$ ground states of oxygen and carbon atoms have been measured by laser magnetic resonance. The $J=2 \rightarrow 1$ transition in oxygen was observed at 63.1 $\mu m$ ($^{13}CH_{3}OH$) by generating the atoms in a discharge through $O_{2}$ (1%) in helium. Using accurate g-factors determined by Radford and $Hughes^{(1)}$ for these levels, a precise value for the $J=2 \rightarrow 1$ splltting was obtained. By combining this result with the $J=1 \rightarrow 0$ interval measured by Davits $et al^{(2)}$ a precise analysis of the spin-orbit interactions and their effects on the magnetic behavior of the atom is possible. Both the $J=0 \rightarrow 1$ transition, observed, at 570 $\mu m (CH_{3}OH)$, and the $J=1 \rightarrow 2$ transition, observed at 380.6 $\mu m(DCOOD)$, were detected for the first time in carbon atoms. C atoms were generated in a methane-fluorine atom flame. The splitting of the three magnetic components of the $J=1 \rightarrow 2$ transition by the second-order Zeeman effect, which was not resolved for the 0 atom, was clearly observable. Similar measurements made for $^{13}C$ allow Isotope shift and magnetic hyperfine effects to be calculated. This work also provides accurate frequencies which can be used in astronominal searches for these species.

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$^{1}$H. E. Radford and V. W. Hughes, Phys, Rev, 114, 1274 (1959). $^{2}$P.B. Davies, B.J. Handy, E.K. Murray Lloyd, and D.R. Smith, J. Chem. Phys. 68, 1135 (1978).
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