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

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Abstract

We perform precision measurements of the branching ratios of the 4p 2P3/2 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 2S1/2, 3d 2D5/2 and 3d 2D3/2 levels are found to be 0.9347(3), 0.0587(2) and 0.00661(4), respectively. For the branching ratio A(P3/2-S\(_{1/2})/\sum_J A(\)P3/2-DJ)=14.31(5), we find a forty-fold improvement in accuracy as compared to the best previous measurement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Otto-Hittmair-Platz 1, A-6020, Innsbruck, Austria

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

  2. Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Innsbruck, Technikerstraße 25, A-6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    G. Kirchmair, F. Zähringer, J. Benhelm, R. Blatt & C. F. Roos

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  1. R. Gerritsma
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  2. G. Kirchmair
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  3. F. Zähringer
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  4. J. Benhelm
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  5. R. Blatt
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  6. C. F. Roos
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Correspondence to C. F. Roos.

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Gerritsma, R., Kirchmair, G., Zähringer, F. et al. Precision measurement of the branching fractions of the 4p 2P3/2 decay of Ca II. Eur. Phys. J. D 50, 13–19 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2008-00196-9

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