Magnetic resonance line shifts in the quantum gas of atomic hydrogen

: Ahokas J, Vainio O, Novotny S, Jarvinen J, Vasiliev S

Publisher: IOP PUBLISHING LTD

: 2010

: Physica Scripta

: PHYSICA SCRIPTA

: PHYS SCRIPTA

: ARTN 014012

: T140

: 5

: 0031-8949

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-8949/2010/T140/014012

We present an experimental study of the quantum gas of atomic hydrogen in a strong magnetic field (4.6 T). The gas is compressed to densities of similar to 10(18) cm(-3) at temperatures of 0.2-0.5 K. We observed shifts of the electron spin resonance (ESR) lines caused by the exchange interaction in atomic collisions (clock shift) and the long-range dipolar interactions. The clock shift was found to be vanishingly small in a doubly polarized gas, in contrast to a mixture of two hyperfine states. The difference is explained by properly including quantum statistical effects in the treatment of atomic collisions. From our data, we extract the difference between the triplet and singlet s-wave scattering lengths, a(t) - a(s) = 60(10) pm, in agreement with existing theories. At densities above 10(17) cm(-3), weakly resolved structures appeared in the ESR spectra, interpreted in terms of electron spin waves. We consider exchange and dipolar interactions to possibly induce the spin waves.