Physical Review A
Measurement of Rydberg-state lifetimes using cold trapped atoms
A. L. de Oliveira, M. W. Mancini, Vanderlei Salvador Bagnato, Luís Gustavo Marcassa
Abstract
In this paper, we demonstrate the use of a cold trapped sample of neutral atoms to perform high-precision measurement of the lifetime for a sequence of Rydberg states of ${}^{85}\mathrm{Rb}.$ States of principal quantum number lying between $n=31$ and $n=45$ are produced and their lifetimes measured using field ionization. Experimental results are compared with existing theories. This is an important demonstration concerning the possibilities of high-precision spectroscopy in the time domain using cold atomic samples.