https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2008-00196-9
Precision measurement of the branching fractions of the 4p 2P3/2 decay of Ca II
1
Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Otto-Hittmair-Platz 1, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
2
Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria
Corresponding author: a Christian.Roos@uibk.ac.at
Received:
18
July
2008
Published online:
15
October
2008
We perform precision measurements of the branching
ratios of the 4p 2P3/2 level decay of a single
40Ca+ ion suspended in a linear Paul trap. High precision
is achieved by a novel technique based on monitoring the
population transfer when repeatedly pumping the ion between
different internal states. The branching fractions into the
4s 2S1/2, 3d 2D5/2 and 3d 2D3/2 levels are
found to be 0.9347(3), 0.0587(2) and 0.00661(4), respectively. For
the branching ratio A(P3/2-SP3/2-DJ)=14.31(5), we find a forty-fold improvement in
accuracy as compared to the best previous measurement.
PACS: 32.70.Cs – Oscillator strengths, lifetimes, transition moments / 32.80.Xx – Level crossing and optical pumping / 37.10.Ty – Ion trapping
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2008