Until recently the sources of electromagnetic waves in the radio and $\gamma$-ray bands were much more monochromatic than optical sources. The advent of stable lasers with frequency reproducibility $\sim10^{14}$ has uncovered new possibilities of performing experiments of interest in physics. To illustrate these possibilities, results are cited of the measurements of the quadratic Doppler effect in a gas, the magnetic hyperfine structure of a vibrational-rotational transition of methane, and the recoil effect. A number of experiments that lasers will make possible in the near future are discussed, namely, high-accuracy measurements of the Rydberg constant using two-photon absorption, measurement of the quadratic Doppler shift, measurements of the gravitational frequency shift of the earth's field, and the possibility of observing parity nonconservation in atomic transitions.

TY JOUR
TI Prospects for precision physical experiments in optics
AU Baklanov, E. V.
AU Chebotaev, V. P.
PB Physics-Uspekhi
PY 1977
JO Physics-Uspekhi
JF Physics-Uspekhi
JA Phys. Usp.
VL 20
IS 7
SP 631-637
UR https://ufn.ru/en/articles/1977/7/d/
ER https://doi.org/10.1070/PU1977v020n07ABEH005447