Zeeman effect of isotopes of Kr and Xe investigated at the linear plasma device PSI-2

Abstract Laser absorption spectroscopy provides high-resolution spectra of atomic transitions that reveal many often inaccessible features. The line shapes of krypton and xenon measured in magnetized plasmas are strongly affected by the contribution of the odd-numbered isotopes 83 Kr, 129 Xe and 131 Xe due to their hyperfine structure, creating more challenging spectra in comparison to even-numbered ones. The lines originating from metastable levels of krypton and xenon with J = 2 (Kr I 760.4 nm) and J = 0 (Kr I 785.7 nm, Xe I 764.4 nm) were measured and analyzed in the linear plasma device PSI-2 in the field range of 22.5 mT–90 mT. Evaluating the Hamiltonian, including hyperfine and Zeeman interaction terms for these magnetic field strengths, unveils a deviation from the linear energy shift of the sublevels as a function of the magnetic field and from constant relative intensities that the weak field formulas provide. We prove that modeling the transitions in Xe using the weak field approximation, frequently used in magnetized plasma, becomes inadequate at ≈50 mT. In particular, the spectra of the 131 Xe isotope show pronounced deviations from the weak field results. For krypton, however, the situation is less critical compared to xenon due to the low natural abundance of the odd-numbered isotope.