EGAS41 - Swansea University

41 st EGAS CP 58 Gdańsk 2009
Investigation of the hyperfine structure of Scandium atom
A. Krzykowski ∗ , D. Stefańska
Chair of Quantum Engineering and Metrology, Poznań University of Technology Nieszawska
13B, PL 60-965 Poznań, Poland
∗ Corresponding author: andrzej.krzykowski@put.poznan.pl
Description of atomic structure with the use of semi-empirical methods proved to be
very successful in cases of many elements. However the quality of such analysis strongly
depends on the number of experimental data.
The experimental knowledge of scandium atom’s hyperfine structure of the levels is
very scarce. Although first observations of the spectrum of scandium were performed by
Popow [1] in 1914 and by Catalan [2] in 1923, hyperfine splitting constants only for several
tenths of levels were hitherto measured.
In the work of Dembczyński et al. [3] an extensive semi-empirical analysis of the
electron structure of scandium atom was performed.
Measurements of the hyperfine structure of the levels of scandium atoms were performed
by means of laser-induced fluorescence in a hollow cathode discharge. The experimental
setup was described in detail in [4].
In several cases of relatively strong absorption transitions saturation effect was observed
and a Doppler-free saturation spectroscopy could be applied to record the hyperfine
structure spectra.
New experimental results were included in a renewed parametric fit. Preliminary
results suggest the improvement of the fit quality [5].
Acknowledgment
The work has been supported by Poznan University of Technology under project No 63-029/2009.
References
[1] Popow, Ann. d. Phys. 45, 163 (1914)
[2] M.A. Catalan, An. Soc. Esp. d.Fis. y Quim 20, 606 (1922); 21, 464 (1923)
[3] J. Dembczyński, M. Elantkowska, J. Ruczkowski, D. Stefańska, Atomic Data and
Nuclear Data Tables 93, 149 (2007)
[4] A. Krzykowski, D. Stefańska, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 41, 055001 (2008)
[5] J. Ruczkowski, M. Elantkowska, private communication
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