Sub-Doppler Two-Photon Laser Spectroscopy of Antiprotonic Helium and the Antiproton-to-Electron Mass Ratio

The ASACUSA collaboration of CERN has recently irradiated antiprotonic helium atoms with two counter-propagating laser beams. This excited some non-linear two-photon transitions of the antiproton at the deep UV wavelengths λ = 139.8–197.0 nm. The counterpropagating geometry of the laser beams reduced the thermal Doppler broadening of the observed resonances. Their narrow spectral lines allowed the measurement of three transition frequencies with fractional precisions of 2.3–5 parts in 109. By comparing the results with three-body QED calculations, the antiproton-to-electron mass ratio was derived as 1836.1526736(23).