Physical Review Letters

Interference Between Coherent Emissions in the Measurement of Atomic Lifetimes

J. H. Macek

Published Jul 7, 1969• 74 citations

Abstract

It is pointed out that the (zero-field) oscillations seen in the decay curves for atoms excited by beam-foil collisions may be due to interference of light from different fine-structure levels; the interference can only be seen, however, if light of different polarizations is detected with different sensitivity.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.23.1

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