Accurate lineshape spectroscopy and the Boltzmann constant.
Nat Commun
; 6: 8345, 2015 Oct 14.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-26465085
ABSTRACT
Spectroscopy has an illustrious history delivering serendipitous discoveries and providing a stringent testbed for new physical predictions, including applications from trace materials detection, to understanding the atmospheres of stars and planets, and even constraining cosmological models. Reaching fundamental-noise limits permits optimal extraction of spectroscopic information from an absorption measurement. Here, we demonstrate a quantum-limited spectrometer that delivers high-precision measurements of the absorption lineshape. These measurements yield a very accurate measurement of the excited-state (6P1/2) hyperfine splitting in Cs, and reveals a breakdown in the well-known Voigt spectral profile. We develop a theoretical model that accounts for this breakdown, explaining the observations to within the shot-noise limit. Our model enables us to infer the thermal velocity dispersion of the Cs vapour with an uncertainty of 35 p.p.m. within an hour. This allows us to determine a value for Boltzmann's constant with a precision of 6 p.p.m., and an uncertainty of 71 p.p.m.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Tipo de estudo:
Prognostic_studies
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2015
Tipo de documento:
Article