Measurements of the ground-state Lamb shift and electron-correlation effects in hydrogenlike and heliumlike uranium

We report measurements of transition energies for highly ionized uranium. For hydrogenic uranium we have measured 102 130[plus minus]92 eV for the 2[ital p][sub 3/2-]1[ital s][sub 1/2] transition. This measurement is sensitive to the 1[ital s] Lamb shift, probing the electron self-energy in high-field QED. In addition, we have measured the (1[ital s]2[ital p])[sup 1][ital P][sub 1],[sup 3][ital P][sub 2-](1[ital s][sup 2])[sup 1][ital S][sub 0] transition in heliumlike uranium as 100 598[plus minus]111 eV, probing relativistic electron-electron correlation effects. Both measurements were obtained with a Doppler spectrometer, a proven technique which we have adapted to the field of high-[ital Z] precision atomic transition-energy measurements. These measurements demonstrate the potential of this technique to attain [similar to]1 eV uncertainties.