Hyperfine structure measurements of the metastable (3d 6 4s 2)3 H 4, 5, 6 states of57Fe: Configuration interaction in the hyperfine structure of the iron atom

We report the hyperfine structure (hfs) measurement of the metastable (3d ⁶ 4s ²)a ³ H _{4, 5, 6} states of⁵⁷Fe. The kHz-precision of these experimental results together with the hyperfine structure values of (3d ⁶ 4s ²)a ⁵ D _{1, 2, 3, 4}, (3d ⁷ 4s)a ⁵ F _{2, 3, 4, 5}, and (3d ⁷ 4s)a ³ F _{2, 3, 4}, which were measured earlier, allowed to determine a very detailed set of effective radial parameters describing the hfs of these states, using a new parametrization method. This method treats one- and two-body contributions to the hfs separately. In this way configuration interaction effects in the hfs of the⁵⁷Fe atom can be studied in detail and compared with configuration interaction effects in the fine structure of the same atom.