Method for Measuring the Pseudomomentum of Hydrogen Atoms by the Number of Observable Hydrogen Lines Controlled by the Diamagnetism

Abstract

Hydrogen atoms, being subjected to a strong magnetic field, exhibit an additional, delocalized potential well at almost a microscopic distance from the nucleus. We studied the influence of the delocalized states of hydrogen atoms on the number of observable hydrogen lines in strongly magnetized plasmas. We show that, for sufficiently large values of the pseudomomentum K (K being the integral of the motion controlling the separation of the center of mass and the relative motions), this effect dominates other factors potentially influencing the number of observable hydrogen lines in strongly magnetized plasmas. We provide examples for plasma parameters relevant to edge plasmas of contemporary and future tokamaks, as well as for DA white dwarfs. We demonstrate that our results open up an avenue for the experimental determination of the pseudomomentum K. This is the first proposed method for the experimental determination of the pseudomomentum—to the best of our knowledge.

Keywords

• center-of-mass effects
• diamagnetism
• hydrogen spectral lines
• measuring pseudomomentum
• strong magnetic fields