Direct Observation of the Hyperfine Transition of the Ground State Positronium

We report the first direct measurement of the hyperfine transition of the ground state positronium. The hyperfine structure between ortho-positronium and para-positronium is about 203 GHz. We develop a new optical system to accumulate about 10 kW power using a gyrotron, a mode converter, and a Fabry-P{e}rot cavity. The hyperfine transition has been observed with a significance of 5.4 standard deviations. The transition probability is measured to be $A = 3.1^{+1.6}_{-1.2} times 10^{-8}$ s$^{-1}$ for the first time, which is in good agreement with the theoretical value of $3.37 times 10^{-8}$ s$^{-1}$.

First direct measurement of positronium hyperfine splitting with sub-THz light

Positronium is an ideal system for the research of the bound state QED. The hyperfine splitting of positronium (Ps-HFS, about 203 GHz) is an important observable but all previous measurements of Ps-HFS had been measured indirectly using Zeeman splitting. There might be the unknown systematic errors on the uniformity of magnetic field. We are trying to measure Ps-HFS directly using sub-THz radiation. We developed an optical system to accumulate high power (about 10 kW) radiation in a Fabry-Perot resonant cavity and observed the positronium hyperfine transition for the first time.