Precision measurement of the branching fractions of the 4p 2P3/2 decay of Ca II

R. Gerritsma; G. Kirchmair; F. Zähringer; J. Benhelm; R. Blatt; C. F. Roos

doi:10.1140/epjd/e2008-00196-9

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Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Plasma Physics

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Eur. Phys. J. D 50, 13-19 (2008)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2008-00196-9

Precision measurement of the branching fractions of the 4p ²P_3/2 decay of Ca II

R. Gerritsma¹, G. Kirchmair¹^,2, F. Zähringer¹^,2, J. Benhelm¹^,2, R. Blatt¹^,2 and C. F. Roos¹^,2^a

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

Abstract

We perform precision measurements of the branching ratios of the 4p ²P_3/2 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 ²S_1/2, 3d ²D_5/2 and 3d ²D_3/2 levels are found to be 0.9347(3), 0.0587(2) and 0.00661(4), respectively. For the branching ratio A(P_3/2-SP_3/2-D_J)=14.31(5), we find a forty-fold improvement in accuracy as compared to the best previous measurement.