Systematic effects in the measurement of the negatively charged pion mass using laser spectroscopy of pionic helium atoms

Abstract

The collision-induced shift and broadening of selected dipole transition lines of pionic helium in gaseous helium at low temperatures up to $T=12$ K and pressure up to a few bar are calculated within variable phase function approach. We predict blue shift of the resonance frequencies of the $(n,l)=(16,15) \rightarrow (16,14) $ and $(16,15) \rightarrow (17,14)$ unfavored transitions and red shift for the favored transition $(17,16) \rightarrow (16,15)$. The result may be helpful in reducing the systematic error in proposed future experiments for determination of the negatively charged pion mass from laser spectroscopy of metastable pionic helium atoms.