Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-atomic-and-laser-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2022/1/b/solution

Measure each energy level by the wavenumber in . An upward electronic transition of vacuum wavelength adds . Treat the quoted wavelengths as vacuum values to their limited accuracy; air corrections would be smaller than the precision justified here.
The strong ground-state absorption must be at . The weak ground-state electronic transition at must reach : the electric-dipole selection rule on excludes the other two triplet state energy levels, while weak spin-orbit coupling admixes singlet state character and relaxes the approximate spin selection rule.
Assume the usual ordering , as expected from a positive effective spin-orbit coupling constant. The three nearby strong spectral lines then join these energy levels to a common energy level. Larger lower-state energy means a smaller gap and longer wavelength, so correspond to respectively. The remaining spectral line joins and . Assume the latter is the upper energy level. These assignments and orderings agree with independently tabulated strontium energy levels.[ref]
Starting with the two ground-state gaps, the construction is
The resulting energy levels, rounded to avoid suggesting spectroscopic precision, are
Figure 1.
Strontium level assignments inferred from the supplied wavelengths; vertical spacings are schematic and numerical energies are in inverse metres
. Details.
Both and exhibit the normal Zeeman effect. Each connects two singlet state energy levels, with Landé g-factor for the energy level and no first-order shift for . Their frequency shifts are . The weak spectral line also has three components, but gives shifts ; a three-component pattern alone does not establish the normal Zeeman effect. The spectral line likewise has three components with .

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