Two-photon laser spectroscopy of antiprotonic helium

摘要

The ASACUSA collaboration of CERN has recently carried out two-photon laser spectroscopy of antiprotonic helium atoms. Some nonlinear two-photon transitions of the antiproton at the deep UV wavelengths λ = 139.8-197.0 nm were excited by irradiating the atom with two counterpropagating laser beams. This reduced the thermal Doppler broadening in the observed spectral lines. Three transition frequencies were thus determined with fractional precisions of 2.3-5 parts in 10~9. By comparing the results with three-body quantum electrodynamics calculations, the antiproton-to-electron mass ratio was derived as 1836.1526736(23). In this paper, we briefly review these recent experimental results.