Hyperfine Structure and Radiative Transitions in Complex Atoms
Summary
Hyperfine structure arises from the coupling between electronic magnetic moments and nuclear spin and quadrupole moments, leading to minute energy‐level splittings superimposed on fine‐structure patterns. In complex atoms, with multiple open shells and strong electron–electron correlations, these splittings encode information on nuclear properties and on electron dynamics under relativistic and quantum electrodynamic influences. Radiative transitions between hyperfine levels proceed via electric dipole, magnetic dipole, electric quadrupole and higher‐order multipole channels. Accurate determination of transition probabilities, oscillator strengths and level lifetimes in such systems underpins precision spectroscopy, the development of frequency standards and the interpretation of astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. Recent theoretical advances exploit multiconfiguration Dirac–Hartree–Fock and perturbative methods to incorporate second‐order correlation effects, Breit interactions and quantum electrodynamic corrections, while experimental approaches employ storage‐ring recombination spectroscopy and high‐resolution laser and microwave techniques to resolve hyperfine‐induced transition rates and nuclear moments.
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Hyperfine Structure and Radiative Transitions in Complex Atoms publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in hyperfine structure and radiative transitions in complex atoms across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Hyperfine structure: Energy‐level splitting due to interaction between electron magnetic moments and nuclear spin or quadrupole moments.
Radiative transition: Spontaneous emission or absorption of a photon as an atom moves between quantised energy levels.
Configuration interaction: A quantum‐mechanical method accounting for mixing between different electronic configurations to improve wave‐function accuracy.
Oscillator strength: Dimensionless quantity measuring the probability of absorption or emission of electromagnetic radiation in a given transition.
Nuclear quadrupole moment: A measure of the asphericity of the charge distribution within a nucleus, influencing electric quadrupole hyperfine splittings.
References
- Energy levels, lifetimes, and transition probabilities for Sr XXXII. Journal of Umm Al-Qura University for Applied Sciences (2023).
- Construction of the energy matrix for complex atoms. The European Physical Journal Plus (2016).
- Semi-empirical determination of the nuclear quadrupole moment of 109Sn. The European Physical Journal Plus (2021).
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