Abstract
Experiments on NO2 reveal a substructure underlying the optically excited isolated hyperfine structure (hfs) levels of the molecule. This substructure is seen in a change of the symmetry of the excited molecule and is represented by the two “states” and of a hfs-level. Optical excitation induces a transition from the ground state of the molecule to the excited state . However, the molecule evolves from to in a time τ0 ≈ 3 μs. Both and have the radiative lifetime τR ≈ 40 μs, but and differ in the degree of polarization of the fluorescence light. Zeeman coherence in the magnetic sublevels is conserved in the transition →, and optical coherence of and is able to affect (inversion effect) the transition →. This substructure, which is not caused by collisions with baryonic matter or by intramolecular dynamics in the molecule, contradicts our knowledge on an isolated hfs-level. We describe the experimental results using the assumption of extra dimensions with a compactification space of the size of the molecule, in which dark matter affects the nuclei by gravity. In , all nuclei of NO2 are confined in a single compactification space, and in , the two O nuclei of NO2 are in two different compactification spaces. Whereas and represent stable configurations of the nuclei,represents an unstable configuration because the vibrational motion in shifts one of the two O nuclei periodically off the common compactification space, enabling dark matter interaction to stimulate the transition → with the rate (τ0)−1. We revisit experimental results, which were not understood before, and we give a consistent description of these results based on the above assumption.
Highlights
Various experiments on NO2 reveal two characteristic time constants associated with the optically excited hyperfine structure levels of the molecule, the radiative decay time τR ≈ 40 μs and the time constant τ0 ≈ 3 μs, which is no radiative decay time, not caused by collisions with baryonic matter, and not caused by intramolecular dynamics in the molecule [1] [2]
We describe the experimental results using the assumption of extra dimensions with a compactification space of the size of the molecule, in which dark matter affects the nuclei by gravity
We give a phenomenological description of the experimental results based on the following assumption: The molecule interacts by gravity with a background field, presumably the axion dark matter field (e.g. Refs. [14] [15] [16] [17]), and based on ADD-theory, gravity is strong in a compactification space of the size of the molecule
Summary
Various experiments on NO2 reveal two characteristic time constants associated with the optically excited hyperfine structure (hfs) levels of the molecule, the radiative decay time τR ≈ 40 μs and the time constant τ0 ≈ 3 μs, which is no radiative decay time, not caused by collisions with baryonic matter, and not caused by intramolecular dynamics in the molecule [1] [2]. The two states b and c have the same radiative lifetime but differ in the degree of polarization of fluorescence light [1] [2]. [1] [2] were using magnetic field induced depolarization of the fluorescence light (zero-magnetic field level-crossing or Hanle effect measurement) as well as optical radio-frequency double resonance. These experiments give τ0 and τR as coherence decay times. The lifetime τR is in agreement with results of radiative decay measurements revealing single-exponential decay ([5] and references given there)
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