Accurate determination of the fine structure constant and test of QED

Author

Bouchendira, Rym ; Cladé, Pierre ; Guelatti-Khélifa, Saïda ; Nez, François ; Biraben, François

Author_Institution

Lab. Kastler Brossel, UPMC, Paris, France

fYear

2012

fDate

1-6 July 2012

Firstpage

244

Lastpage

245

Abstract

We report a new measurement of atomic recoil using atom interferometry and Bloch oscillations in a vertical accelerated optical lattice. The new deduced value of the fine structure constant is α^-1=137.035 999 037(91) with a relative uncertainty of 6.6×10^-10. Using this determination, the theoretical value of the electron anomaly ae is 0.001 159 652 181 13(84). This value is in agreement with the experimental determination of Gabrielse 0.001 159 652 180 73(28). This comparison provides the stringest test of QED, the accuracy is good enough to test for the first time the muonic and hadronic contributions to a_e.

Keywords

constants; fine structure; muons; optical lattices; particle interferometry; quantum electrodynamics; rubidium; ⁸⁷Rb; Bloch oscillations; QED; atom interferometry; atomic recoil measurement; electron anomaly; fine structure constant; hadrons; muons; vertical accelerated optical lattice; Acceleration; Atom optics; Atomic measurements; Measurement by laser beam; Oscillators; Uncertainty; Velocity measurement; Bloch oscillations; QED test; fine structure constant; recoil velocity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Precision Electromagnetic Measurements (CPEM), 2012 Conference on

Conference_Location

Washington, DC

ISSN

0589-1485

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0439-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CPEM.2012.6250893

Filename

6250893