Hyperfine Structure of Helium-3 in the Metastable Triplet State

Abstract

The ${\mathrm{He}}^3$ atom in the ${}_{}{}^3{}_{}{}^{}S_1^{}{}_{}{}^{}$ metastable state represents a system simple enough to be calculable by modern computing methods. For this reason a measurement of the hyperfine splitting of this state is of particular interest, since it is expected that a comparison with theory will reveal some effects of relativity, quantum electrodynamics, and nuclear structure.