Lifetime measurement of the cesium6P3/2level using ultrafast pump-probe laser pulses

Abstract

Using the inherent timing stability of pulses from a mode-locked laser, we have precisely measured the cesium 6P 3/2 excited state lifetime. An initial pump pulse excites cesium atoms in two counterpropagating atomic beams to the 6P 3/2 level. A subsequent synchronized probe pulse ionizes atoms which remain in the excited state, and the photo-ions are collected and counted. By selecting pump pulses which vary in time with respect to the probe pulses, we obtain a sampling of the excited state population in time, resulting in a lifetime value of 30.462(46) ns. The measurement uncertainty (0.15%) is slightly larger than our previous report of 0.12% [Phys. Rev. A 84, 010501(R) (2011)] due to the inclusion of additional data and systematic errors. In this follow-up paper we present details of the primary systematic errors encountered in the measurement, which include atomic motion within the intensity profiles of the laser beams, quantum beating in the photo-ion signal, and radiation trapping. Improvements to further reduce the experimental uncertainty are also discussed.

Determination of the Scalar and Vector Polarizabilities of the Cesium 6sS21/2→Toh1, Damitz2, Tanner3 et al. 2019Phys. Rev. Lett.422180View full textAdd to dashboardCite

“…The values for the 6s 1/2 ||r||6p J matrix elements have been measured precisely in a variety of experiments. These include fast-beam laser [37,40], time-resolved fluorescence [38], ultra-fast pump-probe laser [49], photoassociation [42,44,46], ground-state polarizability [43] and atom interferometry [50]. We take the weighted average of these measurements, to obtain a precision of ∼ 0.035% for these matrix elements.…”

Analysis of Polarizability Measurements Made with Atom Interferometry

“…Gre g oire 15 [1] Am ini03 [42] Ra fa c 94 [57] Young 94 [58] Bouloufa 07 [76] Ra fa c 99 [59] Pa tte rs on15 [63] Differences between recent α(0) measurements [3][4][5]7,42] and an average of α p,Cs values calculated from lifetime measurements [50,[53][54][55][56][57][58][59]63,[70][71][72][73][74][75][76] and R values [12,18,[50][51][52]. The uncertainties on those averages are used to calculate the resulting uncertainties in α r (0).…”

Measurement of the lifetime of the 7sS1/22 state in atomic cesium using asynchronous gated detection

“…Thus, we require precise determinations of electric dipole matrix elements, through a variety of laboratory measurements, and detailed comparison with ab initio theoretical results.The most precise determination of a PV moment in any atomic system is that of the 6s 2 S 1/2 → 7s 2 S 1/2 transition in cesium, carried out by Wood et al in 1997 [1]. In the past 30 years, several advances in models of the atomic structure of the cesium atom [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12], and measurements of key transition amplitudes [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] have been reported. The uncertainty in the E1 transition moment 7s||r||6p 1/2 is presently one of the primary contributors, along with the 7p 1/2 ||r||6s matrix element, to the uncertainty in the PV moment for the 6s 2 S 1/2 → 7s 2 S 1/2 transition [11,23].…”