Sensitivity of microwave and FIR spectra to variation of fundamental constants

Abstract

Microwave and far infrared (FIR) spectra of atoms and molecules are in general more sensitive to the variation of the fundamental constants than optical spectra. For example, FIR transitions between levels of the ground state multiplet 3 P J of Carbon-like ions are sensitive to α-variation, (Levshakov et al . (2008)). Moreover, sensitivities of the transitions (1-0) and (2-1) are different, (Kozlov et al . (2008)). This allows to study α-variation by comparing apparent redshifts for these two transitions of the same ion and significantly reduce systematic errors from the Doppler noise.