https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2004-00022-6
Metastable level lifetimes from electron-shelving measurements with ion clouds and single ions
Physique des Interactions
Ioniques et Moléculaires, CNRS – Université de Provence (UMR 6633),
Centre de Saint Jérôme, Case C21, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20,
France
Corresponding author: a mknoop@up.univ-mrs.fr
Received:
12
September
2003
Revised:
14
November
2003
Published online:
24
February
2004
The lifetime of the 
-level in
singly-ionized calcium has been measured by the electron-shelving
technique on different samples of rf trapped ions. The metastable
state has been directly populated by exciting the
dipole-forbidden 
transition. In ion clouds,
the natural lifetime of this metastable level has been measured
to be (
) ms. For the single-ion case, we determined a
lifetime of (
) ms. The 
-error bars at the
2%-level have different origins for the two kinds of experiments:
data fitting methods for lifetime measurements in an ion cloud
and control of experimental parameters for a single ion.
De-shelving effects are extensively discussed. The influence of
differing approaches for the processing of the single-ion quantum
jump data on the lifetime values is shown. Comparison with recent
measurements shows excellent agreement when evaluated from a
given method.
PACS: 32.70.Cs – Oscillator strengths, lifetimes, transition moments / 32.80.Pj – Optical cooling of atoms, trapping
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2004
