Hannover 2010 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 25: Precision Spectroscopy of Atoms and Ions III
A 25.8: Talk
Friday, March 12, 2010, 12:15–12:30, F 107
A lifetime measurement of the 3p3/2 state in Mg+ inferred from the spectral line shape of the D2 transition — •Sebastian Knünz, Valentin Batteiger, Maximilian Herrmann, Theodor W. Hänsch, and Thomas Udem — MPQ, Garching, Germany
Recently we developed a spectroscopy scheme to obtain nearly perfect line profiles for atomic transitions in the weak binding limit using sympathetically cooled, single ion fluorescence readout. The symmetric, well understood line shape allowed us to extract the absolute frequency with an unprecedented accuracy [1,2]. The line shape is a convolution of a Gaussian due to the ion temperature and a Lorentzian which is the contribution due to the atomic upper state lifetime. A precision measurement of the Lorentzian contribution demands a more in-depth analysis of the experimental setup and the data evaluation methods. Here we report on numerical studies and estimation of the systematic uncertainty as well as our first measurements of the upper state lifetime of the D2 transition in Mg+ using the atomic line shape. [1] M. Herrmann et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 013006 (2009). [2] V. Batteiger et al., Phys. Rev. A 80, 022503 (2009).