Measurement of the Spin-forbidden Decay rate (3s3d)${}^1$D${}_2$ $\to$ (3s3p)${}^3$P${}_{2,1}$ in ${}^{24}$Mg

Abstract

We have measured the spin-forbidden decay rate from (3s3d)${}^1$D${}_2$ $\to$ (3s3p)${}^3$P${}_{2,1}$ in ${}^{24}$Mg atoms trapped in a magneto-optical trap. The total decay rate, summing up both exit channels (3s3p)${}^3$P${}_1$ and (3s3p)${}^3$P${}_2$, yields (196 $\pm$ 10) s${}^{-1}$ in excellent agreement with resent relativistic many-body calculations of [S.G. Porsev et al., Phys. Rev. A. \textbf{64}, 012508 (2001)]. The characterization of this decay channel is important as it may limit the performance of quantum optics experiments carried out with this ladder system as well as two-photon cooling experiments currently explored in several groups.

9 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Optical atomic coherence at the one-second time scale
• Coherent Quantum Engineering of Free-Space Laser Cooling