Atomic spectral lines when a quark is embedded in the nucleus

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-1978

Abstract

There has been a recent claim for the observation of fractionally charged particles. If this evidence is to be interpreted as due to a quark embedded in a heavy nucleus, a natural follow-up is to look for "quark atoms" through their spectral lines. The recent technique of single-atom detection may be one way of doing this. Such searches will require as inputs knowledge of the spectroscopic transitions in the quark-atom. The presence of the quark causes large shifts in spectral lines which fall in the visible and near-visible regions and a simple technique is presented based on interpolations in isoelectronic series for estimating these shifts quickly and accurately for any atom. Results are also presented for the x-ray transitions in heavy atoms and very accurate results for the various series in quark hydrogen. The techniques and results of this paper may also be relevant for searches in laboratory and astrophysical spectra. © 1978 The American Physical Society.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Physical Review A

First Page

1721

Last Page

1728

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