Hyperfine Splittings in Light Atoms

Hyperfine intervals in light hydrogenic atoms and ions are among the most accurately measured quantities in physics. The theory of QED corrections has recently advanced to the point that the uncertainty of these corrections for hydrogenic atoms and ions is probably smaller than 0.1 parts per million (ppm), which is nevertheless not as accurate as the experiments. The difference of the experiments and QED theory is the effect of the nuclear charge and magnetic distributions, and this difference ranges from dozens to hundreds of ppm.

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