Direct measurement of the 3d2D3/2 to 3d2D5/2 lifetime ratio in a single trapped 40Ca+. (22nd January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shao, H; Huang, Y; Guan, H; Gao, K
• Is Part Of: Journal of physics. Volume 51:Number 4(2018:Feb. 15)
• Publication Date: 2018-01-22
• Subjects: single ion -- quantum jump -- lifetime ratio; Atoms -- Periodicals; Molecules -- Periodicals; Optics -- Periodicals; Nuclear physics -- Periodicals; 539.6
• DOI: 10.1088/1361-6455/aaa191
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0953-4075

Abstract

Abstract: We present for the first time a direct measurement of the lifetime ratio between the 3 d 2 D 3 / 2 and 3 d 2 D 5 / 2 metastable states in a single trapped 40 Ca + . A high-efficiency quantum state detection technique is adopted to monitor the quantum jumps, and a high precision and synchronized measurement sequence is used for laser control to study the rule of spontaneous decay. Our method shows that the lifetime ratio is a constant and is irrelevant to the dwell time; it is only determined by the spontaneous decay probabilities of the two metastable states at one random decay time, independent of the lifetimes of the two metastable states. Systematic errors such as collisions with background gases, heating effects, impurity components, the shelving and pumping rates and the photon counts are analyzed, and the lifetime ratio between the 3 d 2 D 3 / 2 and 3 d 2 D 5 / 2 states is directly measured to be 1.0257(43) with an uncertainty of 0.42%. Our result is in good agreement with the most precise many-body atomic structure calculations. Our method can be used to obtain the lifetime of a state which is usually difficult to measure and can be used to determine the magnetic dipole transition matrix elements in heavy ions such as Ba + and Ra +, and can also be universally applied to lifetime ratio measurements of other single atoms and ions with a similar structure.