Hyperfine structure in the arc spectrum of cæsium and nuclear rotation

Abstract

The arc spectrum of cæsium was investigated with the object of finding whether any of its lines possessed hyperfine structure, resulting from a nuclear magnetic moment, due to a quantised nuclear spin. The lines belonging to the principal series should, owing to the greater degree of penetration of the electron in the (1 s or 6 1 ) orbit, and the correspondingly greater interaction, show the greatest effect. The lines of the principal series are very easily broadened if the vapour pressure of the metal becomes high, so that great care had to be used in obtaining the spectrum of cæsium at a sufficiently low temperature. The most satisfactory method of excitation was found to be the application by means of external electrodes of a very high frequency alternating current to a tube filled with helium at about 2 mm. pressure containing a small quantity of cæsium. The tube required slight heating to bring out the cæsium lines; without this the helium spectrum was very much stronger than the metallic spectrum. At a very low vapour pressures of cæsium the discharge was blue in colour. Under these conditions the lines of the principal series showed no broadening greater than that due to thermal agitation, but at a slightly higher temperature the colour of the discharge became purple and the lines broadened. The lines belonging to the principal series were found to be very close doublets with very nearly constant frequencies differences. A theory is worked out which explains the origin of these doublets, assuming a nuclear spin of one half quantum; by correlating the difference in the separation of the hyperfine structure doublets in the 1 s — m 2 p 3/2 lines and the 1 s — m 2 p 1/2 lines, it is shown that a ratio of the magnetic to the mechanical moment of the nucleus about twice as great as the corresponding ratio for the electron would account for the observed frequency differences. The spectral notation used throughout is that of Hund. The results are compared with those found for the hyperfine structure of some of the bismuth lines by Back and Goudsmid, and are found to be in satisfactory agreement. A selection principle is found which applies both to the bismuth and the cæsium spectrum.