Deuteron charge radius and Rydberg constant from spectroscopy data in atomic deuterium

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Abstract
We give a pedagogical description of the method to extract the charge radii and Rydberg constant from laser spectroscopy in regular hydrogen (H) and deuterium (D) atoms, that is part of the CODATA least-squares adjustment (LSA) of the fundamental physical constants. We give a deuteron charge radius from D spectroscopy alone of 2.1415(45) fm. This value is independent of the measurements that lead to the proton charge radius, and five times more accurate than the value found in the CODATA Adjustment 10. The improvement is due to the use of a value for the transition in atomic deuterium which can be inferred from published data or found in a PhD thesis.
Funding Information
  • Max Planck Foundation
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
  • LABEX Cluster of Excellence FIRST-TF (ANR-10-LABX-48-01)
  • European Research Council (StG. 279765)
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (200020_159755, 200021_165854)